Analysis, design and testing of a novel direct-drive wave energy converter system

Author

Crozier, R. ; Bailey, Helen ; Mueller, Matthias ; Spooner, E. ; McKeever, P.

Author_Institution

Inst. for Energy Syst., Univ. of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Volume

7

Issue

5

fYear

2013

fDate

Sept. 2013

Firstpage

565

Lastpage

573

Abstract

A coupled electromechanical and hydrodynamic time-domain simulation of a direct-drive generator connected to a heaving buoy for wave energy conversion is presented. The system is based on a novel direct-drive power take-off unit referred to as snapper. The simulation is based primarily in MATLAB using its built-in ordinary differential equation solvers. These solvers act on the data derived from electromagnetic finite element analysis and from the WAMIT wave interaction simulation software. Test results of a generator prototype for comparison with the electromechanical simulation are presented. Results from wave tank tests of a full system incorporating the power take-off are also provided for comparison with the hydrodynamic model.

Keywords

difference equations; finite element analysis; hydrodynamics; power convertors; power engineering computing; time-domain analysis; wave power generation; Matlab; WAMIT wave interaction simulation software; built-in ordinary differential equation solvers; coupled electromechanical simulation; direct-drive generator; direct-drive power take-off unit; direct-drive wave energy converter system; electromagnetic finite element analysis; hydrodynamic model; hydrodynamic time-domain simulation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Renewable Power Generation, IET

Publisher

iet

ISSN

1752-1416

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/iet-rpg.2012.0072

Filename

6584922