Renewable energy is a critical component in combating climate change. Ocean wave energy is a source of renewable energy that can be harvested using Wave Energy Converters (WECs). One such WEC is the floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC), which has been successfully field tested and warrants further exploration. This research implements a publicly accessible code in MatLab and SimuLink to simulate the dynamics of a floating OWC in the time domain. This code, known as the Floating OWC Iterative Time Series Solver (FlOWCITSS), uses the pressure distribution model paired with state space realization to capture the internal water column dynamics of the WEC and estimate pneumatic power generation. Published experimental results of floating moored structures are then used to validate FlOWCITSS. While FlOWCITSS seemed to capture the period and general nature of the heave, surge, and internal water column dynamics, the magnitude of the response sometimes had errors ranging from 1.5% −37%. This error could be caused by the modeling techniques used, or it could be due to uncertainties in the experiments. The presence of smaller error values shows potential for FlOWCITSS to achieve consistently higher fidelity results as the code undergoes further developments. To demonstrate the use of FlOWCITSS, geometry variations of a Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB) are explored for a wave environment and mooring configuration. The reference model from Sandia National Labs, RM6, performed significantly better than a BBDB with an altered stern geometry for a 3 second wave period, indicating that stern geometry can have a significant impact on pneumatic power performance. / Master of Science / Renewable energy is a critical component in combating climate change. Ocean wave energy is a source of renewable energy that can be converted into electricity using Wave Energy Converters (WECs). One such WEC is the floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC), which has been successfully field tested and warrants further exploration. Floating OWCs are partially submerged floating structures that have an internal chamber which water oscillates in. The motions of the water displace air inside this chamber, causing the air to be forced through a high speed turbine, which generates electricity. This research develops a publicly accessible code using MatLab and SimuLink to evaluate the motions and power generation capabilities of floating OWCs. This code is then validated against physical experiments to verify its effectiveness in predicting the device's motions. This publicly accessible code, known as the Floating OWC Iterative Time Series Solver (FlOWCITSS), showed error ranging from 1.5 % - 37% for the most important motions that are relevant to energy harvesting and power generation. These errors could be caused by the numerical models used, or uncertainties in experimental data. The presence of smaller error values shows potential for FlOWCITSS to achieve consistently higher fidelity results as the code undergoes further developments. To demonstrate the use of FlOWCITSS, geometry variations of floating OWCs are explored.

Consider a bottom-hinged Oscillating Wave Surge Converter (OWSC): This device oscillates due to the hydrodynamic forces applied on it by the action of ocean waves. The focus of this thesis is to build upon the in-house multi-block generalized coordinate finite volume solver GenIDLEST using a collocated grid arrangement within the framework of the fractional-step method to make it compatible to simulate such systems. The first step in this process is to deploy a convection scheme which differentiates between air and water. This process is further complicated by the 1:1000 density and 1:100 viscosity ratio between the two fluids. For this purpose, a phase field method is chosen for its ease of implementation and proven boundedness and conservativeness properties. Extensive validation and verification using standard test cases, such as droplet in shear flow, Rayleigh Taylor instability, and the Dam Break Problem is carried out. This development is then coupled with the present Immersed Boundary Module which is used to simulate the presence of moving bodies and again verified against test cases, such as the Dam Break problem with a vertical obstacle and heave decay of a partially submerged buoyant cylinder. Finally, a relaxation zone technique is used to generate waves and a numerical beach technique is used to absorb them. These are then used to simulate the Oscillating Surge Wave Converter. / Master of Science / An Oscillating Wave Surge Converter can be best described as a rectangular flap, hinged at the bottom, rotating under the influence of ocean waves from which energy is harvested. The singular aim of this thesis is to model this device using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). More specifically, the aim is to model this dynamic device with the full Navier Stokes Equations, which include inertial forces, arising due to the motion of the fluid, viscous forces which dissipate energy, and body forces such as gravity. This involves three key steps: 1. Modelling the air-water interface using a convection scheme. A phase field method is used to differentiate between the two fluids. This task is made more challenging because of the very large density and viscosity differences between air and water. 2. Model dynamic moving geometries in a time-dependent framework. For this, we rely on the Immersed Boundary Method. 3. Develop a numerical apparatus to generate and absorb ocean waves. For this, we rely on the Relaxation Zone and Numerical Beach Method. These developments are validated in different canonical problems and finally applied to a two-dimensional oscillating surge wave energy converter.

Ocean wave as a renewable energy source possesses great potential for solving the world energy crisis and benefit human beings. The total theoretical potential wave power on the ocean-facing coastlines of the world is around 30,000 TWh, although cannot all be adopted for generating electricity, the amount of the power can be absorbed still can occupy a large portion of the world's total energy consumption. However, multiple reasons have stopped the ocean wave energy from being widely adopted, and among those reasons, the most important one is immature of the Power Take-off (PTO) technology. In this dissertation, a self-reactive two-body wave energy point absorber that is embedded with a novel PTO using the unique mechanism of Mechanical Motion Rectifier (MMR) is investigated through design, analysis and testing to improve the energy harvesting efficiency and the reliability of the PTO. The MMR mechanism can transfer the reciprocated bi-directional movement of the ocean wave into unidirectional rotation of the generator. As a result, this mechanism brings in two advantages towards the PTO. The first advantage it possess is that the alternating stress of the PTO is changed into normal stress, hence the reliability of the components are expected to be improved significantly. The other advantage it brings in is a unique phenomenon of engagement and disengagement during the operation, which lead to a piecewise nonlinear dynamic property of the PTO. This nonlinearity of the PTO can contribute to an expanded frequency domain bandwidth and better efficiency, which are verified through both numerical simulation and in-lab experiment. During the in-lab test, the prototyped PTO achieved energy transfer efficiency as high as 81.2%, and over 40% of efficiency improvement compared with the traditional non-MMR PTO under low-speed condition, proving the previously proposed advantage. Through a more comprehensive study, the MMR PTO is further characterized and a refined dynamic model. The refined model can accurately predict the dynamic response of the PTO. The major factors that can influence the performance of the MMR PTO, which are the inertia of the PTO, the damping coefficient, and the excitation frequency, are explored through analysis and experiment comprehensively. The results show that the increase on the inertia of the PTO and excitation frequency, and decrease on the damping coefficient can lead to a longer disengagement of the PTO and can be expressed analytically. Besides the research on the PTO, the body structure of the point absorber is analyzed. Due to the low-frequency of the ocean wave excitation, usually a very large body dimension for the floating buoy of the point absorber is desired to match with that frequency. To solve this issue, a self-reactive two-body structure is designed where an additional frequency between the two interactive bodies are added to match the ocean wave frequency by adopting an additional reactive submerged body. The self-reactive two-body structure is tested in a wave to compare with the single body design. The results show that the two-body structure can successfully achieve the frequency matching function, and it can improve more than 50% of total power absorption compared with the single body design. / Doctor of Philosophy / Ocean wave as a renewable energy source possesses great potential for solving the world energy crisis and benefit human beings. The total theoretical potential wave power on the ocean-facing coastlines of the world is around 30,000 TWh, although impossible to be all transferred into electricity, the amount of the power can be absorbed still can cover a large portion of the world's total energy consumption. However, multiple reasons have stopped the ocean wave energy from being widely adopted, and among those reasons, the most important one is immature of the Power Take-off (PTO) technology. In this dissertation, a novel two body wave energy converter with a PTO using the unique mechanism of Mechanical Motion Rectifier (MMR) is investigated through design, analysis, and testing. To improve the energy harvesting efficiency and the reliability of the PTO, the dissertation induced a mechanical PTO that uses MMR mechanism which can transfer the reciprocated bi-directional movement of the ocean wave into unidirectional rotation of the generator. This mechanism brings in a unique phenomenon of engagement and disengagement and a piecewise nonlinear dynamic property into the PTO. Through a comprehensive study, the MMR PTO is further characterized and a refined dynamic model that can accurately predict the dynamic response of the PTO is established. The major factors that can influence the performance of the MMR PTO are explored and discussed both analytically and experimentally. Moreover, as it has been theoretically hypothesis that using a two-body structure for designing the point absorbers can help it to achieve a frequency tuning effect for it to better match with the excitation frequency of the ocean wave, it lacks experimental verification. In this dissertation, a scaled two-body point absorber prototype is developed and put into a wave tank to compare with the single body structure. The test results show that through the use of two-body structure and by designing the mass ratio between the two bodies properly, the point absorber can successfully match the excitation frequency of the wave. The highest power capture width ratio (CWR) achieved during the test is 58.7%, which exceeds the results of similar prototypes, proving the advantage of the proposed design.

As worldwide energy consumption continues to increase, so does the demand for renewable energy sources. The total available wave energy resource for the United States alone is 2,640 TWh/yr; nearly two thirds of the 4,000 TWh of electricity used in the United States each year. It is estimated that nearly half of that available energy is recoverable through wave energy conversion techniques. In this thesis, a two-body 'point absorber' type wave energy converter with a mechanical power-takeoff is investigated. The two-body wave energy converter extracts energy through the relative motion of a floating buoy and a neutrally buoyant submerged body. Using a linear frequency-domain model, analytical solutions of the optimal power and the corresponding power-takeoff components are derived for the two-body wave energy converter. Using these solutions, a case study is conducted to investigate the influence of the submerged body size on the absorbed power of the device in regular and irregular waves. Here it is found that an optimal mass ratio between the submerged body and floating buoy exists where the device will achieve resonance. Furthermore, a case study to investigate the influence of the submerged body shape on the absorbed power is conducted using a time-domain numerical model. Here it is found that the submerged body should be designed to reduce the effects of drag, but to maintain relatively large hydrodynamic added mass and excitation force. To validate the analytical and numerical models, a 1/30th scale model of a two-body wave energy converter is tested in a wave tank. The results of the wave tank tests show that the two-body wave energy converter can absorb nearly twice the energy of a single-body 'point absorber' type wave energy converter. / Master of Science

<p>The computational modeling of ocean waves and ocean-faring devices poses numerous challenges. Among these are the need to stably and accurately represent both the fluid-fluid interface between water and air as well as the fluid-structure interfaces arising between solid devices and one or more fluids. As techniques are developed to stably and accurately balance the interactions between fluid and structural solvers at these boundaries, a similarly pressing challenge is the development of algorithms that are massively scalable and capable of performing large-scale three-dimensional simulations on reasonable time scales. This dissertation introduces two separate methods for approaching this problem, with the first focusing on the development of sophisticated fluid-fluid interface representations and the second focusing primarily on scalability and extensibility to higher-order methods.</p><p>We begin by introducing the narrow-band gradient-augmented level set method (GALSM) for incompressible multiphase Navier-Stokes flow. This is the first use of the high-order GALSM for a fluid flow application, and its reliability and accuracy in modeling ocean environments is tested extensively. The method demonstrates numerous advantages over the traditional level set method, among these a heightened conservation of fluid volume and the representation of subgrid structures.</p><p> </p><p>Next, we present a finite-volume algorithm for solving the incompressible Euler equations in two and three dimensions in the presence of a flow-driven free surface and a dynamic rigid body. In this development, the chief concerns are efficiency, scalability, and extensibility (to higher-order and truly conservative methods). These priorities informed a number of important choices: The air phase is substituted by a pressure boundary condition in order to greatly reduce the size of the computational domain, a cut-cell finite-volume approach is chosen in order to minimize fluid volume loss and open the door to higher-order methods, and adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is employed to focus computational effort and make large-scale 3D simulations possible. This algorithm is shown to produce robust and accurate results that are well-suited for the study of ocean waves and the development of wave energy conversion (WEC) devices.</p> / Dissertation