Energy Flux Method for Wave Energy Converters

Energy Flux Method for Wave Energy Converters

Blog Article

Hydrodynamic tools reveal information as to the behaviour of melee live resin a device in the presence of waves but provide little information on how to improve or optimise the device.With no recent work on the transfer of power (energy flux) from a wave field through the body surface of a wave energy converter (WEC), we introduce the energy flux method to map the flow of power.The method is used to develop an open-source tool to visualise the energy flux density on a WEC body surface.

This energy flux surface can also be used to compute the total power capture by integrating over the surface.We apply the tool to three WEC classes: a heaving cylinder, a twin-hulled hinged barge, and pitching surge devices.Using the flux surfaces, we investigate power efficiency in terms of power absorbed to power radiated.

We visualise the hydrodynamic consequence of sub-optimal damping.Then, for two pitching surge dodge warlord for sale devices with similar resonant peaks, we reveal why one device has a reduced power performance in a wave spectrum compared to the other.The results show the effectiveness of the energy flux method to predict power capture compared to motion-based methods and highlight the importance of assessing the flux of energy in WECs subjected to different damping strategies.

Importantly, the tool can be adopted for a wide range of applications, from geometry optimisation and hydrodynamic efficiency assessment to structural design.