Wave Slamming on An OWSC Wave Energy Converter in Coupled Wave-Current Conditions with Variable-Depth Seabed

摘要

Coastal wave energy resources have enormous exploitation potential due to shorter weather window,closer installation distance and lower maintenance cost.However,impact loads generated by depth variation from offshore to nearshore and wave-current interaction,may lead to a catastrophic damage or complete destruction to wave energy converters(WECs).This objective of this paper is to investigate slamming response of a coastal oscillating wave surge converter(OWSC)entering or leaving water freely.Based on fully nonlinear potential flow theory,a time-domain wave-current-structure interaction model combined with higher-order boundary element method(HOBEM),is developed to analyze the coupled hydrodynamic problem.The variable-depth seabed is considered in the model to illustrate the shallow water effect on impact loads and free surface profiles in coastal zone.A domain decomposition approach is utilized to simulate the overlapping phenomenon generated by a jet falling into water under gravity effect.Through a series of Lagrangian interpolation methods,the meshes on boundaries are rearranged to avoid the mismatch between element size on free surface and body surface.The present model is validated against the existing experimental and numerical results.Simulations are also provided for the effects of wave-current interaction and uneven local seabed on the slamming responses.It is found that the length of the splash jet increases for a following current and decreases for an opposing current,and that the slamming response of the OWSC device is sensitive to the geometric features of the uneven seabed.