Hydrodynamic Research Of A Floating Pendulum Wave Energy Converter

Being constantly reminded that traditional methods of energy production are contributing to serious environmental problems,many governments have seen the urgent need for green energy.There is rich wave energy resource on our earth.With wave energy technology development,it appears many different types of wave energy converters(WECs).Among these WECs,floating-type wave energy converter has the advantages of high wave energy conversion efficiency,strong shock resistance ability in rough sea and stable output power.Therefore,it is regarded as a promising energy utilization part.Conformation optimization and achieve resonation with wave are two key parts of designing pendulum wave energy converters.The object of this paper is to study hydrodynamics of a novel floating type pendulum wave energy converterThis paper first introduces basic principle establishes mechanic model of this kind of floating type pendulum wave energy converter(WEC)which proves that conformation plays a key part to improve hydrodynamic performance of the WEC.Then the paper discusses the accuracy of a numerical wave tank built in Flow-3D.It turns out that the software has the ability to model waves precisely but it need to be modified to decrease wave reflection.A hybrid reflection decreasing way with a smaller reflection rate was proposed based on previous study of other researchers.After that,a fluid structure interaction model was established to simulate interactions between wave and the WEC.Five basic shape were proposed to make an optimization at the first step,one was chosen because it had a maximal averaged rotational angle during a wave period.Six new shapes of WEC were put forward based on the optimal shape at last step.The result shows that one kind of WEC performance better when wave period is shorter than 4 seconds,while another better when wave period is longer than 4 seconds.At last,the paper also takes the wave tank experiment to preliminarily prove the validity of the established simulation model,which lays the foundation for later sea trial in the East China Sea.