Performance Analysis of a Novel Hybrid Device with Floating Breakwater and Wave Energy Converter Integrated

Abstract

In this paper, a hybrid device with wave energy converter (WEC) and flexible porous floating breakwater integrated is proposed. The hydrodynamic performance of this device is studied by numerical simulation based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) method which has been validated through experimental results. A series of numerical simulations are performed under different power take-off stiffness (KPTO) and different power take-off damping coefficient (CPTO) to calculate the motion and transmission coefficient of the device. By comparing the numerical results, the influence of KPTO and CPTO of the hybrid device on its wave attenuation performance and energy conversion efficiency are analyzed. The results indicate that under the incident waves of period 0.56s and 0.89s, the recommended value of KPTO is 3.0N/m and 0.5N/m respectively. While for incident waves of period 0.56s, in order to achieve better wave attenuation performance and power generation efficiency, the recommended value of CPTO should be between 10.55Ns/m and 14.23Ns/m. On this basis, the influence of the size of breakwater on the wave attenuation performance and power generation efficiency of the hybrid device is also discussed. Moreover, through a cost analysis, it can be inferred that the utilization of the baseline model is more economically viable.

Keywords: Wave energy converterFloating breakwaterPhysical experimentHydrodynamic performanceReynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equation