Fluid Mechanics Research Journal (FMRJ)

Research Article

On optimizing the wave energy converters configuration in a farm

H. Behzad¹ and P. Sanaei²

¹Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102-1982, USA.

²Department of Mathematics, New York Institute of Technology, New York, New York 10023-7692, USA.

Submitted: August 31, 2019; Revised: October 11, 2019; Accepted: November 6, 2019

Abstract

In this paper a finite arrays of bottom hinged flap-type wave energy converters are modeled using a numerical approach. The converters are similar to the ones from Aquamarine Power, which is called Oyster and we use ANSYS-AQWA as a software for numerical simulation. The goal of this study is to optimize the annual energy absorption of a farm depending on the lateral and vertical spacing between converters based on a wave-spectrum case study. By design of some tests, the ability of ANSYS-AQWA is probed for modeling the hydrodynamic interactions of wave energy converters (WEC) in a farm. In order to obtain the acceptable results from the tests and validate the software abilities, three different layouts are presented for the farm. The performances of converters are studied in each layout and later on the layout with appropriate spacing and power-take-off systems (PTO) is chosen in order to maximize the farm annual energy absorption. Our results show that variation in the lateral spacing (perpendicular to the wave direction) of the converters changes the energy absorption slightly and the shape of energy diagram and its peak period remain the same. However, changing the vertical spacing (parallel to the wave direction) of the converters dramatically affects the energy absorption as well as the peak period of energy diagram.

Keywords

Wave farm; Wave energy converters; ANSYS-AQWA; Wave-body interaction.

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