Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Novel Wave Energy Converter

Abstract

A novel wave energy converter (WEC) was designed, fabricated and tested experimentally in the wave channel. The wave channel produced two dimensional sinusoidal waves from the generator. Experimental study on the novel WEC was carried out at the different wave frequency ranging from 0.7 Hz to 1 Hz and at five different water depths of 240 mm, 260 mm, 270 mm and 280 mm. A flywheel is utilized as an energy storage system in this study. It provides an improved way of power output from the system, even with intermittent input of the incoming waves. The use of the backwall helps the novel WEC to move the same distance during the back stroke as it achieved during the front stroke to complete the cycle. The maximum stroke length was 90 mm at back wall distance of 200 mm with the clearance of 50 mm from the bottom. The optimum angle of the backwall placement was 14° and the maximum power output of 4.79 watt was achieved at a frequency of 1 Hz and at a water depth of 280 mm. An efficiency of 5.31% was achieved for the designed novel WEC.