Comparison of fully non linear and weakly nonlinear potential flow solvers for the study of wave energy converters undergoing large amplitude of motions

• Published in: Volume 9B: Ocean Renewable Energy
• Main Authors: Letournel, Lucas, Harris, Jeffrey C., Ferrant, Pierre, Babarit, Aurélien, Ducrozet, Guillaume, Benoit, Michel, Dombre, Emmanuel
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de recherche en Hydrodynamique, Énergétique et Environnement Atmosphérique (LHEEA), École Centrale de Nantes (ECN)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire d'Hydraulique Saint-Venant / Saint-Venant laboratory for Hydraulics (LHSV), École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC)-EDF R&D (EDF R&D), EDF (EDF)-EDF (EDF)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: CCSD 2014
• Subjects: [SPI.MECA.MEFL]Engineering Sciences [physics]/Mechanics [physics.med-ph]/Fluids mechanics [physics.class-ph]; [SPI.NRJ]Engineering Sciences [physics]/Electric power; Arctic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01199157; https://hal.science/hal-01199157v1/document; https://hal.science/hal-01199157v1/file/Letournel2014.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1115/OMAE2014-23912

International audience We present a comparison between two distinct numerical codes dedicated to the study of wave energy converters. Both are developed by the authors, using a boundary element method with linear triangular elements. One model applies fully nonlin-ear boundary conditions in a numerical wavetank environnment (and thus referred later as NWT), whereas the second relies on a weak-scatterer approach in open-domain and can be considered a weakly nonlinear potential code (referred later as WSC). For the purposes of comparison, we limit our study to the forces on a heaving submerged sphere. Additional results for more realistic problem geometries will be presented at the conference. INTRODUCTION Among the marine renewable energy sources, wave energy is a promising option. Despite the great number of technologies that have been proposed, currently no wave energy converter (WEC) has proven its superiority over others and become a technological solution. Usual numerical tools for modeling and designing WECs are based on boundary elements methods in linear potential theory [1-4]. However WECs efficiency relies on large amplitude motions [5], with a design of their resonance frequencies in the wave excitation. Linear potential theory is thus inadequate to study the behavior of WEC in such configuration.