Numerical Study of Resonant Wave Energy Converters in Selected Sites

Abstract: There is an increasing demand for electricity throughout the world. In addition, it is desired to produce a significant amount of this electricity in environmentally friendly ways. One way to do this is to harvest energy from ocean waves. Many different solutions have been proposed worldwide but to this point no solution which is both effective and able to withstand the environment in the oceans has been developed. The company CorPower Ocean is currently developing a Wave Energy Converter inspired by the pumping principles by the human heart. A newly invented mechanism for phase control called WaveSpring is believed to solve many of the problems that have stopped previous solutions from success. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the usage and tuning of the WaveSpring for different wave conditions. Basically the thesis can be divided into two parts. One part is rather analytical and aims to find a good strategy for how the WaveSpring can be used to brake the motion of the WEC when needed. The other part aims to find an optimal strategy for tuning the WaveSpring while considering energy costs for doing so. To do so an optimization problem is formulated and solved.