Abstract
Ocean wave energy is a clean and inexhaustible energy resource, capable of providing more than 2 TW of energy supply worldwide. Among all the technologies available to convert wave energy, the point-absorber is one of the most promising solutions today, due to its ease of both fabrication and installation. The floaters of point-absorber WECs (wave energy converters) are generally exposed to harsh marine environments with great uncertainties in environmental loads, which make their reliability assessment quite challenging. In this work, a reliability assessment framework, which combines parametric finite element analysis (FEA) modelling, response surface modelling and reliability analysis, has been developed specifically for the floater of point-absorber WECs. An analytical model of point-absorber WECs is also developed in this work to calculate wave loads and to validate the developed FEA model. After the validation through a series of simulations, the reliability assessment framework has been applied to the NOTC (National Ocean Technology Centre) 10 kW multiple-point-absorber WEC to assess the reliability of the floater, considering the fatigue limit state (FLS). Optimisation of key design components is also performed based on reliability assessment in order to achieve target reliability. The results show that for the considered conditions, the WEC floater is prone to experience fatigue failure before the end of their nominal service life. It is demonstrated that the reliability assessment framework developed in this work is capable of accurately assessing the reliability of WECs and optimising the structure on the basis of reliability.
Highlights
Climate change, increasing energy demand globally, rising industrialisation, and population growth rate are just four of the driving factors that constitute clean, sustainable and renewable energy – one of the world's priorities that can enable further development
Response surface modelling is used to post-process the finite element analysis (FEA) simulation results, deriving the performance function expressed in terms of stochastic variables
The reliability assessment framework has been applied to assess the reliability of wave energy converter (WEC) floaters and improve the
Summary
Climate change, increasing energy demand globally, rising industrialisation, and population growth rate are just four of the driving factors that constitute clean, sustainable and renewable energy – one of the world's priorities that can enable further development. Wind and solar energy have attracted significant attention so far, as interaction with natural resources is straightforward, in the last decade more consideration has been given to technologies harvesting energy from waves and tides. Ocean wave energy is a clean and inexhaustible resource, able to provide more than 2 TW of energy supply worldwide (Gunn and Stock-Williams, 2012). The device responsible for capturing and converting wave energy is the wave energy converter (WEC). This technology generally uses a PTO (power take off) system to convert the motion of the floater into electricity to the grid; the floater is one of the key parts of the whole device
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