Methodology of determining water energy converter output for converters with flexible power take-off element

Abstract

Marine energy is most abundant source of non-traditional energy. It is vital to collect this clean energy by converting mechanical movement of energy converter structural element to any other form of power and create device to harvest the most concentrated source of raw energy provided by nature. With combined effort from members of National Aviation University, Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding and Institute of Hydromechanics of NAS Ukraine a breakthrough version of water energy converter was successfully designed, created and tested in a field. Designing a marine energy converter that will be durable, efficient and easy to install\maintain has been the ultimate goal of research teams across the globe for a while. Marine energy applied on flexible surface will apply mechanical force to move physical body in maximum length of wave amplitude. Thus that is possible to determine power density as a value of energy that is required to move a unit of surface to wave height. This specific design of marine energy converter can be used both on surface and submerged states and power output that is provided by energy converter can be calculated for any requested set up by following algorithm provided in article. Authors pointed out that power of water energy converter will be subjected by take-off element unit area to radius ratio and will drastically drop with b/R≥0.5. Article offers calculations and graphs for water energy converter with of 9m length and power take-off element unit area to radius ratio b/R=2 that are designed for wave amplitude of a=1,5m. Taking presented graphs for power output in mind, geometrical dimensions of energy converter can be calculated for specific wave amplitude.