Numerical and Experimental Study of the Solo Duck Wave Energy Converter

Jinming Wu, Yingxue Yao, Dongke Sun, Zhonghua Ni and Malin Göteman
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Jinming Wu: School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, Jiangsu, China
Yingxue Yao: Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, China
Dongke Sun: School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, Jiangsu, China
Zhonghua Ni: School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, Jiangsu, China
Malin Göteman: Department of Engineering Science, Uppsala University, 75121 Uppsala, Sweden

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: The Edinburgh Duck is one of the highly-efficient wave energy converters (WECs). Compared to the spine-connected Duck configuration, the solo Duck will be able to use the point absorber effect to enhance its power capture performance. In this paper, a 3D computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model is developed to predict the hydrodynamic performance of the solo Duck WEC in regular waveswithin a wide range ofwave steepness until the Duck capsizes. A set of experiments was designed to validate the accuracy of the CFD model. Boundary element method (BEM) simulations are also performed for comparison. CFD results agree well with experimental results and the main difference comes from the friction in the mechanical transmission system. CFD results also agree well with BEM results and differences appear at large wave steepness as a result of two hydrodynamic nonlinear factors: the nonlinear waveform and the vortex generation process. The influence of both two nonlinear factors iscombined to be quantitatively represented by the drag torque coefficient.The vortex generation process is found to cause a rapid drop of the pressure force due to the vortexes taking away the kinetic energy from the fluid.

Keywords: solo Duck; computational fluid dynamic; wave steepness; experiment; hydrodynamic nonlinearity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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