Numerical study on the performance of a wave energy converter with three hinged bodies

In this paper, we propose a novel wave energy converter (hereinafter called Wave Loong (R)) consisting of two rafts hinged at each raft end and one pendulum hung at the joint of the rafts. A mathematical model based on the linear wave theory with the consideration of three bodies hinged together and various connection conditions between any two of the three bodies is presented to investigate the performance of the converter. The effect of damping coefficient, raft length, pendulum length, pendulum radius of gyration, pendulum mass and wavelength on capture width ratio is analysed, and the mechanisms underlying wave energy capture are explored. The comparison of capture width ratios for the converter with and without a pendulum is made to demonstrate that the performance of the Wave Loong (R) is much better than a conventional raft-type WEC in terms of capture width ratio and wavelength bandwidth. The comparison of capture width ratios for the WECs with various connection conditions between any two of a fore raft, aft raft and pendulum is also made to evaluate which kind of connection condition is superior. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.