Time domain model for a two-body heave converter: Model and applications

This study presents a methodology to obtain the power performance of a two-body heave converter. First, the methodology relies on a time domain model which represents the motion of the two bodies throughout the time. This time model was built substituting the entire equation system with a state-space system, thereby avoiding the convolution integral of the radiation force. This technique is demonstrated to be a reliable and very efficient method in terms of speed. Then, based on this model the instantaneous power of the device can be obtained. The performance of the device is shown through the power production matrix and the 60 year series power production statistics. This long series is obtained by means of using the MaxDiss selection technique in order to compute only the power of the most representative sea states and the Radial Basis Function (RBF) interpolation technique which interpolates in order to obtain the complete power series. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.