Abstract
Considerable work has been undertaken for the improvement of Wave Energy Converters (WEC) and array design. The present work focuses on the local effects of wavestructure interactions within an array of oscillating absorbers in order to optimise energy absorption. We use a model system of flexible blades, subject to monochromatic waves and develop
a simplified one-dimensional model in order to predict optimal configurations, depending on various parameters, which include the number of blades and spacing. Optimal configurations are found to converge towards both regular and irregular arrays, depending on array size and on the choice of local parameters. These optimal arrays are found to increase global forcing by up to 5% compared to regular arrays.