Fully nonlinear time-domain simulation of a backward bent duct buoy floating wave energy converter using an acceleration potential method

ABSTRACT A floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC) wave energy converter, a Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB), was simulated using a state-of-the-art, two-dimensional, fully-nonlinear Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) technique. The hydrodynamic performance of the floating OWC device was evaluated in the time domain. The acceleration potential method, with a full-updated kernel matrix calculation associated with a mode decomposition scheme, was implemented to obtain accurate estimates of the hydrodynamic force and displacement of a freely floating BBDB. The developed NWT was based on the potential theory and the boundary element method with constant panels on the boundaries. The mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) approach was employed to capture the nonlinear free surfaces inside the chamber that interacted with a pneumatic pressure, induced by the time-varying airflow velocity at the air duct. A special viscous damping was applied to the chamber free surface to represent the viscous energy loss due to the BBDB’s shape and motions. The viscous damping coefficient was properly selected using a comparison of the experimental data. The calculated surface elevation, inside and outside the chamber, with a tuned viscous damping correlated reasonably well with the experimental data for various incident wave conditions. The conservation of the total wave energy in the computational domain was confirmed over the entire range of wave frequencies.