NONLINEAR MOTION ANALYSIS OF THE WAVESTAR WAVE ENERGY CONVERTER WITH A FOCUS ON THE STRUCTURAL RESPONSES

The scope of this paper is to connect a nonlinear WEC numeri-cal model with a structural response model. The numerical WEC model takes into account the nonlinear hydrostatic restoring mo-ment of the Wavestar float. A parameterized structural model of the Wavestar arm is developed in ANSYS APDL. Based on the assumption that the structural displacements remain small, lin-ear first order theory is used to calculate the structural response. The section moments and forces are thus superimposed accord-ing to the superposition law. The effect of the nonlinear hydro-static restoring moment on the structural response is investigated. Moreover, an analysis is carried out which shows that reactive control, applied as a closed loop control, increases the section moments and shear forces.