Non-linear dynamic simulations of two-body wave energy converters via identification of viscous drag coefficients of different shapes of the submerged body based on numerical wave tank CFD simulation

Abstract

Two-body point absorbers are useful for wave energy conversion in high energetic and high wave period sea locations. Analysis and simulation show that the two-body point absorbers have high efficiencies which makes them a potential candidate to promote wave energy harvesting technology towards commercialization and implementation. The submerged body of the two-body point absorbers has a large effect on their performance, hence the question arises: which geometric shape of the submerged body will lead to the best performance of the two-body wave energy harvesters? This paper presents a comprehensive study that analyses the different shapes of the submerged bodies based on the numerical wave tank simulated viscous drag coefficient and hydrodynamic property parameters of the oscillating device. A set of transient and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic simulations of a numerical wave tank were carried out in Ansys Fluent to determine the viscous drag coefficients of the different submerged body shapes. And then the boundary element hydrodynamic simulation and linear dynamic frequency-domain modeling have been applied to identify the optimized PTO damping. Finally, non-linear time-domain modeling has been applied with the identified viscous damping drag coefficient and PTO damping coefficients to predict and compare the power output performance of different large-scale devices with different shapes of submerged bodies. It is found that each submerged body shape is suitable for a different range of wave frequencies, as one must establish a balance between the hydrodynamic properties and the viscous drag of the submerged body based on the sea location. It is also found that the typical viscous drag coefficient values used in the past studies underestimate the drag coefficient, and the linearized model widely adopted in frequency domain models is non-accurate for the devices with large viscous drag forces.