Integration of a heaving-type wave energy converter with a chambered breakwater system

This paper examines the response of a heaving plate wave energy converter integrated with a chambered breakwater system through experimental and numerical simulations. A porous seaside wall with 20% porosity and an impermeable back wall constitutes a chambered breakwater under investigation. The time-domain response of the wave energy converter before and after integration with the chambered breakwater is evaluated using an open-source code WEC-Sim implemented in MATLAB and Simulink. The performance of WEC subjected to regular wave conditions and the wave elevations measured from the experiments are examined in the present investigation. The reflection characteristics of the chambered breakwater system after integrating with the wave energy converter have been found to decrease. The heave RAO of the wave energy converter installed at a location toward the porous wall is observed to have improved by 22% after integrating with the chambered breakwater than the stand-alone wave energy converter. A similar increase in the power generation performance of the wave energy converter is also observed. The proposed system can improve the economic competitiveness of the wave energy converter by serving dual purposes.