Vibration control is a large branch in control research, because all moving systems may induce desired or undesired vibration. Due to the limitation of passive system's adaptability and changing excitation input, vibration control brings the solution to change system dynamic with desired behavior to fulfill control targets. According to preference, vibration control can be separated into two categories: vibration reduction and vibration amplification. Lots of research papers only examine one aspect in vibration control. The thesis investigates the control development for both control targets with two different control applications: vehicle suspension and ocean wave energy converter. It develops control methods for both systems with simplified modeling setup, then followed by the application of a novel mechanical motion rectifier (MMR) gearbox that uses mechanical one-way clutches in both systems. The flow is from the control for common system to the control design for a specifically designed system. In the thesis, active (model predictive control: MPC), semi-active (Skyhook, skyhook-power driven damper: SH-PDD, hybrid model predictive control: HMPC), and passive control (Latching Control) methods are developed for different applications or control performance comparison on single system. The thesis also studies about new type of system with switching mechanism, in which other papers do not talk too much and possible control research direction to deal with such complicated system in vibration control. The state-space modeling for both systems are provided in the thesis with detailed model of the MMR gearbox. From the simulation, it can be shown that in the vehicle suspension application, the controlled MMR gearbox can be effective in improving vehicle ride comfort by 29.2% compared to that of the traditional hydraulic suspension. In the ocean wave energy converter, the controlled MMR WEC with simple latching control can improve the power generation by 57% compared to the passive MMR WEC. Besides, the passive MMR WEC also shows its advantage on the passive direct drive WEC in power generation improvement. From the control development flow for the MMR system, the limitation of the MMR gearbox is also identified, which introduces the future work in developing active-MMR gearbox by using an electromagnetic clutch. Some possible control development directions on the active-MMR is also mentioned at the end of the thesis to provide reference for future works. / Master of Science / Vibration happens in our daily life in almost all cases. It is a regular or irregular back and forth motion of particles. For example, when we start a vehicle, the engine will do circular motion to drive the wheel, which causes vibration and we feel wave pulses on our body when we sit in the car. However, this kind of vibration is undesirable, since it makes us uncomfortable. The car manufacture designs cushion seats to absorb vibration. This is a way to use hardware to control vibration. However, this is not enough. When vehicle goes through bumps, we do have suspension to absorb vibration transferred from road to our body. The car still experiences a big shock that makes us feel dizzy. On the opposite direction, in some cases when vibration becomes the motion source for energy harvesting, we would like to enhance it. Hardware can be helpful, since by tuning some parameters of an energy harvesting device, it can match with the vibration source to maximize vibration. However, it is still not enough due to low adaptability of a fixed parameter system. To overcome the limitation of hardware, researches begin to think about the way to control vibration, which is the method to change system behavior by using real-time adjustable hardware. By introducing vibration control, the theory behind that started to be investigated. This thesis investigates the vibration control theory application in both cases: vibration reduction and vibration enhancement, which are mentioned above due to opposite application preferences. There are two major applications of vibration control: vehicle suspension control and ocean wave energy converter (WEC) control. The thesis starts from the control development for both fields with general modeling criteria, then followed by control development with specific hardware design-mechanical motion rectifier (MMR) gearbox-applied on both systems. The MMR gearbox is the researcher designed hardware that targets on vibration adjustment with hardware capability, which is similar as the cushion seats mentioned at the beginning of the abstract. However, the MMR cannot have capability to furtherly optimize system vibration, which introduces the necessity of control development based on the existing hardware. In the suspension control application, the control strategy introduced successfully improve the vehicle ride comfort by 29.2%, which means the vehicle body acceleration has been reduced furtherly to let passenger feel less vibration. In the WEC application, the power absorbed from wave has been improved by 57% by applying suitable control strategy. The performance of improvement on vibration control has proved the effect on further vibration optimization beyond hardware limitation.

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.

The point absorber is one of the most popular types of ocean wave energy converter (WEC) that harvests energy from the ocean. Often such a WEC is deployed in an ocean location with tidal currents or ocean streams, or serves as a mobile platform to power the blue economy. The shape of the floating body, or buoy, of the point absorber type WEC is important for the wave energy capture ratio and for the current drag force. In this work, a new approach to optimize the shape of the point absorber buoy is developed to reduce the ocean current drag force on the buoy while capturing more energy from ocean waves. A specific parametric modeling is constructed to define the shape of the buoy with 12 parameters. The implementation of neural networks significantly reduces the computational time compared to solving hydrodynamics equations for each iteration. And the optimal shape of the buoy is solved using a genetic algorithm with multiple self-defined functions. The final optimal shape of the buoy in a case study reduces 68.7% of current drag force compared to a cylinder-shaped buoy, while maintaining the same level of energy capture ratio from ocean waves. The method presented in this work has the capability to define and optimize a complex buoy shape, and solve for a multi-objective optimization problem. / Master of Science / The marine kinetic energy includes ocean waves power, tidal power, ocean current power, ocean thermal power and river power. The total potential marine kinetic energy in 2021 is 2300 TWh/year, where 1400 TWh/year is from the ocean wave power. To discover and harvest the huge potential power from the marine, researchers have been developed for different types of WECs for several decades. One of the most successful concepts is the point absorber typed WEC, which can extract waver energy from the heaving vibration motion of a floating body and convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy. This thesis presents an optimization strategy to optimize the shape of the floating body to improve power extraction and reduce the installation cost by implementing the machine learning tool and genetic algorithm. Compared with the state-of-the-art optimization strategies, the proposed optimization method allows the floating body to have more parameters in shape changes and reduces the computational cost from minutes to milliseconds. The final optimized floating body shape performs extraordinarily compared to the other two state-of-the-art floating body shapes.

This thesis deals with a system for operation of directly driven offshore wave energy converters. The work that has been carried out includes laboratory testing of a permanent magnet linear generator, wave energy converter mechanical design and offshore testing, and finally design, implementation, and offshore testing of an underwater collector substation. Long-term testing of a single point absorber, which was installed in March 2006, has been performed in real ocean waves in linear and in non-linear damping mode. The two different damping modes were realized by, first, a resistive load, and second, a rectifier with voltage smoothing capacitors and a resistive load in the DC-link. The loads are placed on land about 2 km east of the Lysekil wave energy research site, where the offshore experiments have been conducted. In the spring of 2009, another two wave energy converter prototypes were installed. Records of array operation were taken with two and three devices in the array. With two units, non-linear damping was used, and with three units, linear damping was employed. The point absorbers in the array are connected to the underwater substation, which is based on a 3 m3 pressure vessel standing on the seabed. In the substation, rectification of the frequency and amplitude modulated voltages from the linear generators is made. The DC voltage is smoothened by capacitors and inverted to 50 Hz electrical frequency, transformed and finally transmitted to the on-shore measuring station. Results show that the absorption is heavily dependent on the damping. It has also been shown that by increasing the damping, the standard deviation of electrical power can be reduced. The standard deviation of electrical power is reduced by array operation compared to single unit operation. Ongoing and future work include the construction and installation of a second underwater substation, which will connect the first substation and seven new WECs.

Wave energy conversion technology has gained popularity due to its potential to be-come one of the most preferred energy sources. Its high energy density and low car-bon footprint have inspired the development of many wave energy converter (WEC) technologies, few of which have made their way to commercialisation, and many are progressing. The Floating Power Plant (FPP) device is a combined floating wind and wave converter. The company, Floating Power Plant, was established in 2004 and has developed and patented a floating device that consists of a semi-submersible that serves as a foundation for a single wind turbine and hosts four wave energy converters (WECs). Each WEC consists of a partially submerged wave absorber whose pitching motion generates energy from incoming waves. The wave absorbers are connected to an oil hydraulic power take-off system located in a dry “engine room” above the free water surface, where the mechanical energy in the absorber is converted to electricity. When undergoing pitching movements, there are interactions between individual wave absorbers and the surrounding platform. This thesis focuses on developing methods to improve the FPP WEC’s hydrodynamic interactions. The first part of this thesis optimises the wave absorber (WA) ballast. An ana-lytical model is developed to enable systematic selection of WA ballast combination with significantly less computational effort when compared with the more conven-tional means, such as using CAD software. The study suggests an algorithm with which the absorbed power and resonance frequency can be improved and adjusted by manipulating the ballasts’ mass, the position of its centre of gravity, placement and inclination of the WA. The proposed method is generic and can be applied to other WEC concepts or submerged bodies in general. The results show the feasibility of designing the absorber ballast to offer passive control for increased wave absorption. It demonstrates the effect of ballast on the WA inclination, resonance frequency and response amplitude operator (RAO). The second part focuses on the optimisation of the FPP platform geometry. The genetic algorithm optimisation technique is implemented to maximise the annual en-ergy produced by the relative pitch motion of the WA to the floating platform. The optimised variables are characteristic lengths of the floating platform, most of which are part of the immediate surrounding walls of the absorber. The objective function is a function of the WA’s annual energy production (AEP) and RAO. Results show the feasibility of improving the hydrodynamic interaction between the floating platform and its integrated wave absorbers for a given wave climate by using a heuristic search technique. The number of iterations to convergence tends towards increased values when considering more optimised variables. It is also observed that the computational time appears to be independent of the number of variables but is significantly impacted by the computational power of the machine used.

Wave energy has the potential to provide an energy resource in this challenging energyenvironment. Wave energy converters are devices used to extract this energy and convertit into electricity. Wave Carpet is an example of such a novel wave energy converters andin its final form, it consists of a submerged membrane which covers an arbitrarily largearea above the sea floor. Incident waves create a pressure difference between the upper andlower surfaces, which triggers an up-and-down movement. The power take-off attached tothe surfaces serve to restrict this movement and thereby extract hydraulic power which isconverted to electricity.The Wave Carpet, is a type of wave energy converter that is beingdeveloped at University of California Berkeley′s Theoretical and Applied Fluid DynamicsLaboratory (TAFLab).The thesis aims at modeling and designing the different power conversion chainof the entire wave energy converter device. The process of energy conversion that yieldsthe required electrical energy for connecting a wave energy converter to an electricalnetwork is termed as the power conversion chain. A detailed electro-mechanical modelof the wave energy converter system connected to power grid is developed in theMatlab/SIMULINK environment and its corresponding generator and hydraulic controlstructure is implemented. The simulation response of the wave energy converter alongwith the power conversion chain is investigated. / Vågenergi har potential att bli en energiresurs i en utmanande energimiljö. Vågkraftverkär maskiner som används till att utvinna denna energi och omvandla den till elektricitet.Wave Carpet är ett exempel på ett vågkraftverk som i sitt slutglitiga stadie bestårav ett nedsänkt membran som täcker ett godtyckligt stort område ovanför sjöbotten.Inkommande vågor skapar en tryckskillnad mellan den övre och nedre ytan som gerupphov till en lodrätt rörelse. De mekaniska armarna kopplade till membranet bromsardenna rörelse och kan genom hydraulik omvandla bromsenergin till elektricitet. The WaveCarpet är en typ av vågkraftverk som utvecklas vid University of California Berkeley′sTheoretical and Applied Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (TAFLab).Uppsatsen syftar till att modellera och designa effektomvandlingskedjan i ett sådantvågkraftverk. Energiomvandlings processen som ger upphov till elektriciteten via ettvågkraftverk är benämnt som effektomvandlingskedjan. En detaljerad elektro-mekaniskmodell över ett vågkraftverksystem kopplat till ett elnät med motsvarande generator ochhydraliska regulatorer är utvecklad i Matlab/Simulink miljön. Simuleringsresultaten fråndet modellerade vågkraftverket undersöks tillsammans med effektomvandlingskedjan.

In this study, the initial hydrostatic stability, the hydrostatic stability and the structure realibility of three different barge-shaped vessels is simulated and evaluated in order to see which of the vessels would be the most optimal to use for deployment of wave energy converters, WECs. The vessels differ in their hull type: Bulbous-bow hull vessel, Barge hull vessel and Modified-barge hull vessel. In order to do the evaluation, the hull of each vessel is designed in DELFTship and further design is proceeded in SolidWorks 2014. Structural strength analysis is performed in SolidWorks 2014 and hydrostatic properties are simualted in Ansys Aqwa 16.0. The collected results are pointing at that the Modified-barge hull vessel is slightly superior to the others in terms of hydrostatic stability, while the structure stability is equal. The results of this study will provide a foundation for further evaluation of vessels capable of deploying wave energy converters.

Thesis (MScEng (Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.

<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

O objetivo desse trabalho é a construção de um sistema de geração de energia elétrica, para uso em locais remotos, tendo como fonte primária a energia proveniente de ondas marinhas. Numa primeira etapa foram realizados estudos e análises dos principais parâmetros significativos para a geração da energia elétrica e os dados de consumo de eletroeletrônicos. Este sistema serviu para coletar e armazenar dados que orientam o desenvolvimento de bombas e turbinas para a geração de energia elétrica. Foram também usados para avaliar o seu rendimento em diversas aplicações que necessitavam de energia elétrica. O uso da energia elétrica gerada também foi estudado para melhorar o seu rendimento diante dos vários equipamentos que foram utilizados desde notebooks até geladeiras convencionais. Foram empregados um microcontrolador, da família \"arduino\", vários sensores colocados em pontos estratégicos no local e os dados armazenados em memória durante o período do desenvolvimento. Sensores de pressão, vazão, amplitude das ondas, sentido do vento, temperatura e vários medidores (de tensão e corrente em AC e DC) foram usados para obter valores numéricos para análises de rendimentos de conversão em energia elétrica, vazão e outros parâmetros importantes para uma posterior melhoria no projeto inicial. Os dados foram armazenados em memórias do tipo cartão SD de 16 G bytes. Foi confeccionada uma bomba de água movida pelas ondas marinhas. Sua implantação ocorreu na Ilha do Arvoredo, em Guarujá, SP, onde a energia elétrica era gerada através do uso de motores a diesel. A água é bombeada a uma altura de 30 metros e armazenada em um tanque com capacidade de 20.000 litros. A água armazenada vai diretamente para uma turbina geradora de eletricidade por um sistema controlador de pressão e, pode gerar uma potência elétrica de até 200 W. O excedente de água poderá ser também usado para os viveiros de animais marinhos. A maior parte dos materiais que foram utilizados na fabricação dos equipamentos foi de materiais recicláveis reduzindo o custo do projeto. Esse projeto estará disponível para comunidades carentes que necessitam de energia elétrica em locais remotos, normalmente ilhas, mas podem ser adaptadas em terra desde que possuam quedas de água. O projeto de geração de energia usando ondas marinhas é inovador e com fins sociais para pessoas de baixa renda como os pescadores. Normalmente o pescado conseguido nas proximidades de ilhas isoladas são salgados para serem conservados devido à falta de refrigeração. / The aim of this work is the constructions of an electrical power generation system for use in remote locations, having primary source of energy from sea waves. At a first step were carried out studies and analyzes of the main important parameters for the generation of electricity and electronics power consumption data. This system was used to collect and store data that guide the development of pumps and turbines for generating electricity. Various electronics applications were also used to evaluate the total electricity was required and were studied to improve their performance like notebooks or conventional refrigerators. A microcontroller was employed and several sensors placed at strategic points in the power generation energy system and the data stored in the memory card during the development period. Pressure sensors, flow, amplitude of waves, wind direction, temperature and various electrical sensors (voltage and current in AC and DC) that were used to obtain numerical values for analysis of conversion into electrical energy, water flow and other important parameters for further improvement the initial project. The data were stored on SD memory card of 16 G bytes. A water pump driven by ocean sea waves was made. This work has taken place in Ilha do Arvoredo, in Guarujá, SP, where the electricity was generated using diesel engines. The water is pumped until 30 meters high and stored in a tank with 20.000 liters. This stored water goes directly to the turbine by a pressure system control and generate an electrical power output up to 200 W. When not require, the exceeding water can also be used for marine animals nurseries. Most materials that were used in manufacturing of the equipment is recyclable materials reducing the cost of the project. The final project will be available to poor communities that need electricity in remote locations. Usually the fish achieved near isolated islands are salted to be maintained for lack of refrigeration.