CFD Simulation of a Moored Floating Wave Energy Converter
Paper i proceeding, 2013

The paper presents incompressible Navier-Stokes simulations of the dynamics of a floating wave energy converter (WEC) coupled to a high-order finite element solver for cable dynamics. The coupled model has very few limiting assumptions and is capable of capturing the effects of breaking waves, green water loads on the WEC as well as non-linear mooring forces and snap loads, all of which are crucial for correct estimates of the extreme loads acting on the system in violent seas. The cable dynamics model has been developed as a stand-alone library that can be coupled to any body motion solver. In this study the open-source CFD package OpenFOAM has been employed. Preliminary test cases using incident regular Stoke’s 5th order waves are presented, both for wave heights corresponding to operational conditions of the WEC as for a more severe condition in survival mode. It is illustrated that the coupled model is able to capture the complicated force propagation in the mooring cables.

catenary

Navier-Stokes equations

wave energy converter

time-domain analysis

mooring cable dynamics

coupled analysis

survival

Författare

Johannes Palm

Chalmers, Sjöfart och marin teknik

Claes Eskilsson

Chalmers, Sjöfart och marin teknik, Marine Design

Guilherme Moura Paredes

Lars Bergdahl

Chalmers, Sjöfart och marin teknik

10th European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference

2309-1983 (ISSN)

Drivkrafter

Hållbar utveckling

Styrkeområden

Energi

Infrastruktur

C3SE (Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering)

Ämneskategorier

Marin teknik

Mer information

Skapat

2017-10-07