Effects of Mooring Compliancy on the Mooring Forces, Power Production, and Dynamics of a Floating Wave Activated Body Energy Converter

Luca Martinelli and Barbara Zanuttigh
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Luca Martinelli: ICEA Department, University of Padova, via Ognissanti 39, 35129 Padova, Italy
Barbara Zanuttigh: DICAM, University of Bologna, viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-24

Abstract: The paper aims at investigating the interactions between a floating wave energy device (WEC) and its mooring system under a variety of wave conditions (regular and irregular, perpendicular and oblique, ordinary and extreme). The analyzed WEC is the DEXA, a wave activated body point absorber, of the type that performs better when aligned to the incident wave direction. Two typologies of mooring systems were studied: for limited depths, the spread system, with a disposition of the lines that do not constrain the yaw movements; for large depths, the catenary anchor leg mooring (CALM) system. The spread system was experimentally investigated, including a realistic power take-off system, to capture non-linear behaviors and assess device motions, power production, and forces on mooring lines. The CALM system was numerically simulated, as mooring modelling is more reliable in deep waters and allows testing of a number of different configurations, by changing the number of the mooring lines and the mooring layout. The experiments showed that a reduction of the mooring compliancy increases the power production. The numerical simulations showed that a redundancy on the number of chains allows a better distribution of the loads, with advantages on reliability and costs.

Keywords: wave energy converter; mooring compliancy; power production; weathervaning; spread mooring system; CALM mooring system (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: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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