Wave Loads and Protective Techniques of An On-Shore Wave Power Device

In this paper, the extreme wave loads on an on-shore wave power device are investigated. First, boundary element method is applied to solve the three dimensional potential problem based on the small amplitude wave assumption. Then the motion of the Oscillating Water Column (OWC) inside the device and its laods on the device are calculated in time domain. Several protective techniques often applied are simulated by changing the constraint of the upper end of the chamber of the device. Numerical results are used to judge the effectiveness of these techniques. The investigation shows that damping can not effectively restrain the motion of OWC when the period of incident wave is long, which may cause dangerous loads on the structure. The shut chamber can effectively restrain the motion of OWC, but alternatively cause high pressure in the chamber. A Contracting opening with a Taper (CT) can exhaust a great amount of kinetic energy of OWC, and significantly decrease the loads. It is a promising protective tec