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The development of new wave energy converters has shed light on a number of unanswered questions in fluid mechanics, but has also identified a number of new issues of importance for their future deployment. The main concerns relevant to the practical use of wave energy converters are sustainability, survivability, and maintainability. Of course, it is also necessary to maximize the capture per unit area of the structure as well as to minimize the cost. In this review, we consider some of the questions related to the topics of sustainability, survivability, and maintenance access, with respect to sea conditions, for generic wave energy converters with an emphasis on the oscillating wave surge converter. New analytical models that have been developed are a topic of particular discussion. It is also shown how existing numerical models have been pushed to their limits to provide answers to open questions relating to the operation and characteristics of wave energy converters.

In this work, a numerical model is developed in order to investigate the adaptability of the multi-pump multi-piston power take-off (MP 2 PTO) system of a novel wave energy converter (WEC). This model is realized in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment, using the multi-body dynamics solver Multibody TM , which is based on the open-source tool WEC-Sim. Furthermore, the hydrodynamic coefficients are calculated using the open-source code NEMOH. After providing the description of the model, it is validated against experimental results and an analytical model, showing good agreement with both. Subsequently, simulations for a single floater device with a multi-piston pump (MPP) unit using our numerical model are carried out to demonstrate the adaptability of the WEC. In addition, the results demonstrate that the MPP with a simple control strategy can extract more energy than any non-adaptable piston pump under various sea states. Finally, a floater blanket (an array of interconnected floaters) model is developed to shed some light on the hydrodynamic response and the performance of MPPs. The developed numerical model will be used in the future to optimize the MP 2 PTO configuration, and to develop an energy maximization control strategy for the MP 2 PTO system.

This paper presents a nonlinear frequency domain model and uses this to assess the performance of a wave energy converter (WEC) array with a nonlinear power take-off (PTO). In this model, the nonlinear PTO forces are approximated by a truncated Fourier series, while the dynamics of the WEC array are described by a set of linear motion equations in the frequency domain, and the hydrodynamic coefficients are obtained with the boundary element method. A single heave absorber is firstly investigated to establish the accuracy of the new model in capturing the nonlinear behavior of the pumping system. Subsequently, simulations of a 2D array with 18 WECs and a pillar in the center (representing the tower of a wind turbine) are carried out to understand wave interference effects. Several optimization strategies are proposed to improve the overall performance of the WEC array. These results demonstrate a computationally effective method for accounting for nonlinear effects in large WEC arrays. The proposed approach may potentially be applied for developing control algorithms for the adaptability of a 2D array to incoming wave excitation.