Study On The Pendulum Wave Energy Converter

As a kind of renewable energy and one of the richest forms among the oceanenergy, it has been exploited for more than two centuries. Renewable energy has beengiven a good deal of attention with the development of the world such as populationgrowth, increasing energy demand, exhausted conventional energy resources, pollutionof the environment and so on. Moreover, the exploitation of the new energy form mustcoincide with the concept of the sustainable development and be nonpolluting andlow-cost. Rapid development of the new energy technology has being a call of thetimes, and theory and techniques of the conversion, storage and delivery of the newenergy is a frontier subject. It is a deep thinking and correct understanding to take theexploitation of the wave energy as a Ph.D topic, and arduous task the era gives to theyouth. It is believed that the renewable owns its prospective and play a important rolein the near future.Fully understanding about the research progress and status of the wave energyconverters has been done on the base of abundance of literature and document. Thependulum wave energy converter has been chosen as the study objects after thecomprehensive techniques and key knowledge have been understand. Firstly, modeltest of the fixed type pendulum wave energy converter articulated against bottom shaftwas carried out. Two different model shapes were compared for optimization, inaddition, optimization of the damping and ballast condition were also processed, withthe study of the separate energy conversion efficiency. Secondly, two and threedimensional calculation of the model about the hydrodynamic characteristics was doneon the base of the potential theory, and the results were compared with those of themode test. One more, model test of the floating type array arrangement pendulum waveenergy converter were launched in the lab. The overall conversion efficiency was takenas the indexes to compare several permutations and combinations of the wave energyconverter, the optimal scheme was obtained among the selected permutation andcombinations, the results can be an important reference to the real sea test. The schemenamed "pendulum oscillating buoy" was proposed against energy conversion pattern of the conventional pendulum wave energy converter, which can be illustrated to achievethe energy absorption by integration of the pitching and heaving freedoms and it hasbeen verified feasible in reality. Finally, the prototype was constructed and real testwas conducted on the base of the above studies. And the scheme of "pendulumoscillating buoy" was applied in the prototypes. Several key techniques were brokenthrough in the real test and tests on the equipments for particular use were conducted,mainly on the independent and stable power output, underway reliable control andmonitoring system, sinkable ballast control system, robust and self-protect mooringsystem strong survivability in storms and so on. And at the same time, improvementson the generation assembly were carried out to increase the efficiency of power outputand reduce the cost. It has been demonstrated by the real test that the floating typearray arrangement pendulum wave energy converter system was a success and had itsunique advantages, a lot of experience were gathered and several key techniques weregained to put this type of wave energy converter to practical use and engineeringapproaches.In short, multi-composition optimization based on the independent innovationfloating type array arrangement scheme of "pendulum oscillating buoy" wereconducted experimentally. The scheme was proposed and achieved in the real sea testsuccessfully combined with the fact that the low density of the ocean energy in Chinacoastal area. The active remote control of the converter was obtained for the first timeso that the safety was maintained friendly. Energy conversion of two different freedomssimultaneously was also achieved successfully in the real sea state, which wasdescribed as composite mode. Meanwhile, the floating type array arrangementpendulum wave energy converter can sink and rise freely regardless of the tidalfluctuation depending on the ballast control, which wouldn’t be a realist for a fixedashore wave energy converter.