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  • Accepted Manuscript: Ocean power technology design optimization

Title: Ocean power technology design optimization

For this study, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) conducted a collaborative code validation and design optimization study for OPT's PowerBuoy wave energy converter (WEC). NREL utilized WEC-Sim, an open-source WEC simulator, to compare four design variations of OPT's PowerBuoy. As an input to the WEC-Sim models, viscous drag coefficients for the PowerBuoy floats were first evaluated using computational fluid dynamics. The resulting WEC-Sim PowerBuoy models were then validated with experimental power output and fatigue load data provided by OPT. The validated WEC-Sim models were then used to simulate the power performance and loads for operational conditions, extreme conditions, and directional waves, for each of the four PowerBuoy design variations, assuming the wave environment of Humboldt Bay, California. And finally, ratios of power-to-weight, power-to-fatigue-load, power-to-maximum-extreme-load, power-to-water-plane-area, and power-to-wetted-surface-area were used to make a final comparison of the potential PowerBuoy WEC designs. Lastly, the design comparison methodologies developed and presented in this study are applicable to other WEC devices and may be useful as a framework for future WEC design development projects.
Authors:
ORCiD logo [1] ;  [1] ;  [2] ;  [2]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. Ocean Power Technologies, Pennington, NJ (United States)
Publication Date:
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5000-68074
Journal ID: ISSN 2214-1669
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
International Journal of Marine Energy
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 20; Journal ID: ISSN 2214-1669
Publisher:
Elsevier
Research Org:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Water Power Technologies Office (EE-4WP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER; wave energy converter; extreme condition modeling; computational fluid dynamics; design loads
OSTI Identifier:
1395480