Title: A RANS simulation of the heave response of a two-body floating point wave absorber
Description: For this study, a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) computational method was applied for analyzing the hydrodynamic heave response of the absorber in operational wave conditions. The two-body floating wave absorber contains a float section and a submerged reaction section. For validation purposes, the model was first assumed to be locked. The two sections were forced to move together as a single rigid body. The locked single-body model was used in a heave decay test that validated the RANS result with the experimental measurement. For the two-body floating-point absorber simulation, the two sections were connected through a mass-spring-damper system, which simulated the power takeoff mechanism under design wave conditions. Overall, the details of the flow around the absorber and its nonlinear interaction with waves were investigated. The power absorption efficiency of the two-body floating wave absorber in waves with a constant value spring-damper system was also examined.
Subjects: Ocean wave power, Research, Hydrodynamics, Computer simulation, Fluid dynamics, Ocean energy resources