Hydrodynamic performance analysis of an integrated wave energy absorption system

摘要

The economic competitiveness of the wave energy converter can be improved by adopting a novel approach of integrating a wave energy converter with a vertical porous chambered breakwater. The scope of utilising the wave energy trapped inside a chambered breakwater, using a heaving type wave energy converter model is assessed through experimental and numerical investigations. Three different model cases with different model configurations were tested in a wave tank facility. The reflection characteristics of the chambered breakwater, wave elevations trapped inside the chamber and capability of the wave energy converter model to absorb the trapped wave energy are evaluated and presented in this paper. Adopting a chamber width of the breakwater model that matches the resonant period of the chamber and the incident wave period is found to improve the efficiency of the system to trap more wave energy inside the chamber. The reflection characteristics from the breakwater are found to reduce with the introduction of the wave energy converter model. The average power generation performance of the wave energy converter is found to increase by 20% after integrating it with the chambered breakwater than that of the stand-alone wave energy converter.