Experiment Study On The Floating Foundation For The Flap Wave Energy Converter

The wave energy was considered as a very promising new energy because of its no pollution and great in quantity.In the recent years the flap wave energy converter(WEC)was widely researched among different countries because of its good capability of generating electricity and high capture efficiency.This paper develops a new floating foundation which is used as carrier for the flap WEC and will remarkably broaden the range of application of the flap WEC and lower the cost.So the research work in this paper has significant practical value in the engineering.A new floating flap wave energy converter was proposed and designed given the bottom-hinged flap WEC which was applied.It hinged the flap to a floating foundation and the foundation was moored to the seabed.The numerical calculation and the model test were conducted to analysis the motion behavior of the new device.The numerical simulation was accomplished with AQWA.The model test was in a scale of 1:4 in order to minimize the scale effect.The model test was divided into two stages.First the flap was under the model test individually and then the whole device was under the model test.The characteristics of the flap and the influence laws of different environment conditions on the motion behavior of the device were analyzed through comparing the results of the numeric and model test.The results show that the amplitude of the flap is obviously affected by wave period.When the wave period is close to the natural period of the flap,the motion of the flap rises.The motion of the floating foundation is small and the stability of the foundation is well and the effect on the upper flap is small.The device can generate electricity in different tidy levels and the motion of the flap is the smallest when the flap is just submerged in the water.Overall the floating flap WEC is a feasible device.