The Development of a Rotational Wave Energy Conversion System: Design and Simulations

Abstract

Electrical power generation by means of renewable energies is becoming a flourishing industry with many researchers focusing on investigating new and effective ways to harness this power. This paper presents a new proposed mechanism for harnessing the potential energy of open ocean waves and the procedures of efficiently converting this energy into electricity. Unlike many of the already proposed designs that utilize linear generators, this paper exposes some light on the idea of rotational conversion using ocean waves to make use of mostreadily available generators. A simple buoy, piston, connecting rod and flywheel system fixed to a platform elevated from the sea level is designed and simulated to track the wave surface for converting the linear motion into rotational motion, which will eventually turn the generator. The results are validated with experimental data collected from a laboratory wave generator.

Ocean Wave Energy Harvesting via Scotch Yoke-based Rotational Generation

“…The simulation result of motion converter using a slider crank is adopted from the work reported in [8]. When the motion converter is a slider crank, the output power is 2W as shown in Figure 5 [8].…”

“…3 kg m2 0.5 kg m3 5 kg (8) This equation needs to be balanced. The torque input balancing has been demonstrated in [32] in details.…”

“…al. proposed a way to convert linear motion to rotational motion with the aid of typical slider crank [8]. A buoy is connected to a typical slider crank, which is connected to a generator to produce electricity.…”

“…Nevertheless, one of the promising renewable energy sources is ocean wave, which has several advantages over other renewable energy sources. A 1 m size of solar photovoltaic panel can provide 100 W/m 2 power but the power extraction of similar area from ocean wave is 1000 W/m 2 [8]. Compared to wind energy harvesting, it is known that air density is 832 times lighter than wave density.…”

“…Compared to wind energy harvesting, it is known that air density is 832 times lighter than wave density. However, the wave turbine blade is 3 times smaller than that of wind turbine in order to produce the same amount of power [8]. More than 70 percent of the entire globe surface is covered by ocean and sea, where wave is propagating and the tidal wave effect by moon is higher than that of the sun [9].…”