Experimental assessment of the mooring influence on the power output of floating Wave Activated Body WECs

The paper presents the preliminary results of new physical tests carried out in the directional wave basin of Aalborg University (DK). The devices under exams are two floating 7 Degrees of Freedom Wave Activated Bodies moored with a spread system composed by 4 steel chains. The devices were subject to ordinary North Sea wave climate conditions and deployed in 1:60 scale. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of a Wave Energy Converter considering the interdependencies among energy production, loads on real moorings and device movements. The mooring effects on power production and on device movements are specifically investigated by varying the chain pre-tension level. Results suggest that the power production optimization is achieved with a slack mooring system providing a quasi-static response to the ordinary wave attacks