Numerical And Experimental Analysis of Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB) Wave Energy Converter

A floating-type wave energy converter, Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB) was analyzed its hydrodynamic performance by numerical and experimental methods. A two-dimensional time-domain, fully nonlinear numerical wave tank (NWT) technique based on potential theory and the mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) approach was used to simulate the wave-body interaction of the BBDB system. The nonlinear freesurface inside the chamber was specially treated to represent the viscous effect of fluctuating water column due to the shape of body. The pneumatic pressure of the time-varying airflow velocity in the chamber was also considered. An experiment on the system was carried out to verify the numerical results. The NWT simulations with a tuned viscous damping coefficient were found to be correlated reasonably well with experimental values for various incident wave frequencies.