ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A NOVEL HINGED TYPE WAVE ENERGY CONVERTER

This paper aims at carefully studying the performance of a novel two-body hinged wave energy converter (WEC). Two different types of WEC are investigated: a counterpart using the generic two-body hinged-type WEC composed of two cubic floating bodies and a designed novel two-body hinged WEC composed of floating bodies with wave channels. The wave channel consists of two side walls, an inclined base and an end wall connected to the main floating body. Physical tank tests, CFD simulations and WEC-Sim modelling are employed in the study. Validated by the physically obtained data (including wave elevation, torque force, surge force and heave force acting on the body), the CFD modelling is shown to be capable of presenting the hydrodynamic interaction between the wave and the novel body with wave channel. Additionally, unlike the traditional cubic body, the body with wave channel is able to receive the incoming wave to change the mass properties of the WEC. As a result, the resonance frequency of the designed hinged WEC can vary under different wave conditions, leading the WEC device to have a broader wave capture band. Moreover, a CFD numerical wave tank is built to model the interaction between the wave and the hinged-type WEC with expensive computation however. A fast-solving WEC-Sim modelling is, therefore established to simulate the hydrodynamic response of this novel hinged-type WEC. The results show that the designed hinged type WEC with wave channels has better hydrodynamic performance compared to the generic hinged WEC.