Abstract
The aim of this work is to present the capabilities of the meshless numerical model named DualSPHysics, which coupled with a multiphysics library, is able to reproduce the interaction between waves and a floating wave energy converter (WEC). This is a challenging problem to be simulated with a numerical model since it includes not only the non-linear wave-structure interaction, but also the mechanical constraints of the floating WEC. DualSPHysics, which is a SPH-based code, is herein coupled with the Chrono library. This library is developed as a general-purpose simulation package for multi-body problems. The library is implemented under the DualSPHysics code, providing an integrated interface to define and run arbitrarily defined fluid-structure-structure coupled systems under the same framework. The DualSPHysics-Chrono coupled model was already validated for fluid-structure-structure interaction cases and it is here applied to simulate a floating point absorber. The model-scale WEC was designed and tested in MASK basin. The WEC is independently actuated in heave, surge, and pitch (all the degrees of freedom in a single plane). Tests have been conducted for the investigation of control to improve power generation and load reduction and to study system identification (SID) and model validation. Some of those tests are here reproduced with the proposed numerical tool. Numerical forces exerted by monochromatic waves onto the floating point absorber are compared with the experimental data and good agreement is observed. Therefore, DualSPHysics-Chrono is proposed as a design tool to improve the efficiency and survivability of this 1672-WHM This work was supported in part by Xunta de Galicia under project "