Robust adaptive analysis of dynamic responses of wave energy converters

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to exploit a new and robust method to forecast the long-term extreme dynamic responses for wave energy converters (WECs). Design/methodology/approach A new adaptive binned kernel density estimation (KDE) methodology is first proposed in this paper. Findings By examining the calculation results the authors has found that in the tail region the proposed new adaptive binned KDE distribution curve becomes very smooth and fits quite well with the histogram of the measured ocean wave dataset at the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) station 46,059. Carefully studying the calculation results also reveals that the 50-year extreme power-take-off heaving force value forecasted based on the environmental contour derived using the new method is 3572600N, which is much larger than the value 2709100N forecasted via the Rosenblatt-inverse second-order reliability method (ISORM) contour method. Research limitations/implications The proposed method overcomes the disadvantages of all the existing nonparametric and parametric methods for predicting the tail region probability density values of the sea state parameters. Originality/value It is concluded that the proposed new adaptive binned KDE method is robust and can forecast well the 50-year extreme dynamic responses for WECs.