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The conversion of wave energy in electrical one has been increasingly studied. One example of wave energy converter (WEC) is the overtopping device. Its main operational principle consists of a ramp which guides the incoming waves into a reservoir raised slightly above the sea level. The accumulated water in the reservoir flows through a low head turbine generating electricity. In this sense, it is performed a numerical study concerned with the geometric optimization of an overtopping WEC for various relative depths:d/λ = 0.3, 0.5 and 0.62, by means of Constructal Design. The main purpose is to evaluate the effect of the relative depth on the design of the ramp geometry (ratio between the ramp height and its length:H1/L1) as well as, investigate the shape which leads to the highest amount of water that insides the reservoir. In the present simulations, the conservation equations of mass, momentum and one equation for the transport of volumetric fraction are solved with the finite volume method (FVM). To tackle with water-air mixture, the multiphase model Volume of Fluid (VOF) is used. Results showed that the optimal shape, (H1/L1)o, has a strong dependence of the relative depth, i.e., there is no universal shape that leads to the best performance of an overtopping device for several wave conditions.

This work presents a two-dimensional numerical analysis of a wave channel and a oscillating water column (OWC) device. The main goal is to validate a methodology which uses transient velocity data as a means to impose velocity boundary condition for the generation of numerical waves. To achieve this, a numerical wave channel was simulated using regular waves with the same parameters as those used in a laboratory experiment. First, these waves were imposed as prescribed velocity boundary condition and compared with the analytical solution; then, the OWC device was inserted into the computational domain, aiming to validate this methodology. For the numerical analysis, computational fluid dynamics ANSYS Fluent software was employed, and to tackle with water–air interaction, the nonlinear multiphase model volume of fluid (VOF) was applied. Although the results obtained through the use of discrete data as velocity boundary condition presented a little disparity; in general, they showed a good agreement with laboratory experiment results. Since many studies use regular waves, there is a lack of analysis with ocean waves realistic data; thus, the proposed methodology stands out for its capacity of using realistic sea state data in numerical simulations regarding wave energy converters (WECs).

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