Laminar Scientific: Numerical Modeling of a Unique Half Submerged, Biconcave Buoy That Extracts Surge and Heave Motions

Laminar Scientific has designed a unique WEC system which is meant to capture energy through horizontal wave forces and vertical buoyancy forces. The system is composed of a rectangular shaped buoy with concave sides that is tethered by 4 mooring lines. Each mooring line is attached to a reel located inside of the buoy structure. As the buoy moves along with the waves, the mooring lines pay in and out of the reels which drives a series of generator mechanism to capture the wave energy and convert to electrical power. AMOG was engaged by TEAMER to conduct a series of numerical analysis to assess the performance of Laminar Scientific's WEC design. Using PacWave South as the primary environment, AMOG performed hydrodynamic analysis on the system and investigated design parameters such as buoy size and geometry to optimize the performance of the system.