Numerical Analysis of Hydrodynamic Performance of Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB)

The hydrodynamic performance of Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB), a floating-type wave energy converter, was evaluated in the time-domain simulation by using a two-dimensional fully-nonlinear numerical wave tank (NWT) technique. The developed NWT was based on potential theory, boundary element method with constant panels, and the mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) approach to capture the nonlinear free-surfaces. The viscous damping at the chamber entrance due to oscillating water column and the shape of body causing generation of vortex shedding were modeled and applied to the free surface boundary condition inside the chamber. The calculated surface elevations inside the chamber with open chamber condition were compared with experimental data to select a proper viscous damping coefficient. Then, the surface elevations with a tuned viscous damping coefficient were calculated for various wave conditions. The results of linear and nonlinear time-domain simulation with two different corner-shaped BBDBs were compared to investigate the mean drift force of BBDB. Energy conservation in the computational domain was checked for all cases.