Experimental Study the Performance of a Compact Mooring System for a Dual Chamber Floating Oscillating Water Column Device

Abstract

Abstract A compact mooring system concept is proposed. This novel mooring is composed of submerged buoy and three segments of nylon ropes, which is suitable for the large wave energy converters and wave energy converter array due to its high flexibility and small mooring radius. The performance of this mooring concept was studied experimentally when it was moored to an oscillating water column. The damping of the oscillating water column was modelled by an orifice on top of the chamber. Both regular and irregular head sea wave tests were conducted. In order to study the influence of wave height on system dynamics, two series of regular wave tests with same periods but different wave heights were conducted. An optical tracking system was installed to capture six degrees of freedom motion responses of oscillating water column. The air pressure in the chamber was measured by the air pressure sensor. Two load cells were installed on the top of mooring lines to measure mooring tension time series. Besides, the wave surface elevations inside the chamber were measured by the wave gauges. According to the experimental results, the six degrees of freedom motion responses of floating wave energy converter and mooring tensions are analyzed. Besides, the energy conversion efficiency is evaluated based on the measured data.