NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS EFFECT ON WAVECAT ENERGY CONVERTER

Nowadays, wave energy presents a great potential in many coastal regions. This paper deals with one of the wave energy converters called as WaveCat. The device was patented and modeled by the University of Santiago de Compostela (USDC) Spain in 2011. It consists of two hulls, like a catamaran ship; however, the hulls are convergent so as to leave a wedge between them. The device is operated according to the overtopping principle, which, the higher of overtopping amount collected will give more energy generated. Few studies have been discovered that geometrical parameters, particularly on their wedge and freeboard is the main factors contribute to the effects of their energy performance. However, the knowledge on the influence of these parameters in the overtopping wave is still limited. Hence, this research aimed to extend the border of available knowledge by investigating the influence of wedges angle and freeboard height parameters to the overtopping wave discharge through simulation using FLOW 3D software. Previous experimental results by USDC is used for validation purpose and local wave parameters at East cost Malaysia in 2018 was applied to see an overall effect on the parameters of the performance of WaveCAT. In overall, the results shown a good agreement between the simulation and previous physical experiment finding with the percentage different less than 20%. The result was also discovered that there is huge relationship between wedge and freeboard with the wave overtopping performance of WaveCat.