The Use of CFD in the Analysis of Wave Loadings Acting on Seawave Slot-Cone Generators

The reliability of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in reproducing qualitative and quantitative features of loadings exerted by waves on Seawave Slot-cone Generators (SSG) has been investigated via 17 numerical experiments, conducted with the suite Flow 3D. The geometry of the Wave Energy Converter (WEC), as well as the characteristics of the foreshore in front of it, were identical to those used by the authors in a laboratory study, carried out on a small scale model of a pilot plant to be located along the West Norwegian coasts; the similitude of the layouts allowed an in depth comparison between the results. A good agreement has been generally found between physical and numerical experiments, apart from some aspects of the wave–structure interaction that, however, can be considered secondary for engineering purposes