ISWEC: A gyroscopic mechanism for wave power exploitation

In the past four decades, hundreds of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) have been proposed and studied, but so far a final architecture to harvest wave power has not been identified. Many engineering problems are still to be solved, like survivability, durability and effective power capture in a variable wave climate. ISWEC (Inertial Sea Wave Energy Converter) is a system using the gyroscopic reactions provided from a spinning flywheel to extract power. The flywheel works inside a sealed floating body in order to be protected from the outer environment and grant a reliable and durable operation. The article summarizes the design procedure of a 1: 45 scaled ISWEC device with rated power 2.2 W and the tank tests performed with a simplified plain float to verify the actual prototype power capabilities. The article then focuses on the implementation of a non-linear coupled model (mechanics + hydrodynamics) to improve the float shape in order to maximize the power absorption. The final result is a float shape capable to absorb a power almost three times bigger (5.96 W) than the initial float shape. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.