Design of The Flap Type Wave Energy Converters with Sliding Bottom Hinge

• Main Authors: Sheng-Chi Hou, 侯昇基
• Other Authors: Chen-Chou Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46920400965698245481

碩士 === 國立臺灣海洋大學 === 機械與機電工程學系 === 100 === The purpose of this thesis is to design and develop the flap type wave energy converter with a sliding bottom hinge for the sea climate at Keelung’s near shore. The device was built to convert the kinetic energy of surge motion and potential energy of heaving of waves to electricity. We endeavored to find the design parameters and the influence of parameters on the converter’s efficiency, and compared the device with the flap type wave energy converters with fixed bottom hinge. From the literature, we may found that the main design parameters were the flap’s density, distance of the mass center relative to the buoyancy center, and moment of inertia. Hence we designed a two degree-of-freedom flap type wave energy converter with a sliding bottom hinge. The main feature of the flap type wave energy converters with a sliding bottom hinge was that it had a rail fixed to the base, and the bottom hinge was mounted on the rail, which allowed two degrees of freedom for the flap. To conveniently alter the flap’s weight and the location of the mass center, we implemented a vertically movable platform inside the flap; in that way, the dumb weight can be added onto the platform. Therefore we can investigate the influence of the flap’s density and the height of the mass center. The flap type wave energy converter with a sliding bottom hinge was installed in the wave flume for testing. The test conditions were as follows: 7.5cm of wave height, and 1.56 seconds of wave period. These were one twentieth scale of the wave conditions at the near shore of Keelung, Taiwan. The test results showed that, when the flaps’ density was less than 0.6(g/cm3), the converting efficiency were higher as the flap’s density was lower or the location of the mass center was lower; which result conform to the theoretical prediction. It also showed that, when the wave period was less than 1.7 seconds, the efficiency of the wave energy converter with sliding bottom hinge was higher than that of the one with fixed hinge.