1. Development of a new approach for modelling wave energy converters
Moisés Brito
1. Motivation and Objectives
Design of wave energy converters (WECs) requires tools that express wave-structure-structure interaction and give direct access to overall hydrodynamic loads. This work provides a new, fully coupled, robust numerical approach for multiphysics simulations of WECs.
2. Numerical approach
In this approach the mesh-free DualSPHysics is considered for fluid descriptions and ProjectChrono for mechanical systems (see Figure 1). DualSPHysics is a hardware accelerated Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) open-source code, that allows modelling interactions fluid-structure with extreme deformations and complex topological evolutions. ProjectChrono is a platform-independent, open-source physics-based modelling and simulation infrastructure. This code allows straightforward definition of a large number of mechanical constraints.
Figure 1 - Diagram of the coupling procedure.
3. Results
Numerical results of angular velocity and rotation of the flap of an oscillating wave surge converter (OWSC) present a good agreement with experimental data, with relative error about 5% (see Figure 3).
Figure 2 - Different instants of velocity field.
4. Conclusion
The proposed approach can be useful from the engineering point of view. It can be applied to study OWSC, but also other multiphysics complex systems. Many different devices or technologies related with WECs can be simulated with this approach.
References
M. Brito, R. B. Canelas, R. M. Ferreira, O. García-Feal, J. M. Domínguez, A. J. C. Crespo, M. G. Neves. (2016). "Coupling between DualSPHysics and Chrono-Engine: towards large scale HPC multiphysics simulations. In: Proceedings of the 11th SPHERIC Workshop 2016, Munich, Germany.
Figure 3 - Rotation and angular velocity of the flap.