Prakash Persad and Aneil Ramkhalawan
Ocean wave energy devices, Wave force simulator, Heaving buoy, Hydraulics
This work focused on the testing options available for ocean wave energy devices, with specific interest on heaving wave energy devices. A model was shown for a heaving buoy on the ocean wave and was simulated using Matlab Simulink software. This was done to obtain the type of motion the buoy followed, the speed at which it moved and the force via the ocean wave. A hydraulic system was proposed for the novel wave force simulator to reproduce these characteristics. A schematic of the proposed hydraulic design was presented and similar responses of displacement, velocity and force, were also simulated via the Matlab software again. The profiles of both simulations were compared and hydraulics proves to be practical. A comparison was made between the input signal and the output response. It was noted that the sinusoidal output response followed approximately a linear relationship with the input only for the range of input amplitudes of 0-17 units. A controller would have to be designed for the operation of the proposed hydraulic system, but this paper aims at only showing that the possibility exists for the design of a novel wave force simulator.
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