Floating-chain-sprocket Wave-powered Buoy Capture Efficiency Enhancement Technology Research

In recent years,with the implementation of coastal nations’ marine strategies around the world,the pace of human requests for resources and energy from the ocean is accelerating.The development of marine strategy must first understand the ocean.Marine buoy is one of the key physical technology means for human society to understand the ocean,and it plays an important role in marine scientific research,weather forecasting,ocean development,sea defense construction,etc.However,the current marine buoy is generally powered by battery or solar energy,which leads to the buoys’ permitted load power of only a few tens of watts due to the weak power supply capacity,limited types and numbers of sensors allowed to be carried,and the real-time data transmission is Poor data transmission in real-time.Ocean buoys are located in the marine environment,surrounded by inexhaustible wave energy with high energy flow density.Therefore,the research and development of wave-powered buoys have urgent practical significance for solving the current bottleneck problem of ocean buoy power supply.In this paper,we firstly propose a floating-chain-sprocket wave-powered buoy scheme,to further improve its wave energy harvesting efficiency,and then we propose additional wave energy harvesting technology for mooring anchor chains and study the feasibility of this technology.The main research of this paper is as follows.(1)A floating-chain-sprocket wave-powered buoy scheme is proposed.The scheme mainly uses the floating-chain-sprocket mechanism and the guide tube mechanism to capture wave energy and generate electricity through the hydraulic power take-off(PTO).To further enhance the wave energy collection efficiency of the wave-powered buoy,an additional wave energy collection function technology based on the mooring chain of the buoy itself is proposed.(2)Based on the linear wave theory,similarity theory,and the existing test tank size parameters,a physical model test platform and its measurement and control system are developed for a floating-chain-sprocket wave-powered buoy with and without mooring chain collection function,using the scheme of equivalent external main collection mechanism and built-in mooring chain additional collection mechanism,and a set of calculation methods for testing the hydrodynamic performance of the physical model test are proposed.The physical model test results are used to verify the feasibility of additional wave energy harvesting technology for mooring anchor chains to enhance the harvesting efficiency of floating-chain-sprocket wave-powered buoys.Based on the physical model experimental results,the hydrodynamic performance of the prototype floating-chainsprocket wave-powered buoy with and without the mooring chain acquisition function is predicted using similar principles.(3)Based on the joint simulation technology of AQWA and Orcaflex,the hydrodynamic simulation technology of wave-powered buoy with/without mooring chain additional acquisition function is completed through secondary development.By comparing the consistency of the physical model simulation’s results with the the physical model’s experimental results,and the consistency of the hydrodynamic simulation results of the prototype with the prediction results of the prototype based on similar principles,the feasibility of the mooring chain additional wave energy acquisition technology to improve the acquisition efficiency of the wave-powered buoy is further verified from the theory,on the one hand,and the reliability of the hydrodynamic simulation technology developed in this paper for the wave energy powered buoy of the floating body sprocket is also verified on the other hand.(4)Based on the above-mentioned hydrodynamic simulation techniques,the important parameters(retracting force and damping force)of the wave-powered buoy prototype with the additional collection function of the anchor chain are optimized for two regular wave conditions,and the influence law of the incident wave angle on the hydrodynamic performance of the prototype is studied to provide a theoretical basis for the subsequent development of the prototype.