Abstract
A 1:10 scale model of a Cycloidal Wave Energy Converter (CycWEC) was tested in the Texas A&M Offshore Technology Research center wave basin. These experiments were the first investigations involving a CycWEC in which three dimensional wave diffraction effects were present due to the fact that the span of the CycWEC was much smaller than the width of the basin. These experiments were also the first in which the power extracted from the waves exceeded the viscous losses leading to a measured net shaft power production of 370W. Direct shaft power measurements were found to agree well with expected CycWEC performance based on wave gauge measurements in connection with predictions of viscous losses based on published hydrofoil data. A three dimensional diffraction model predicted the observed surface wave patterns in the experiment well, and showed that diffraction induced wave focusing increased the recoverable wave power beyond the 2D predictions for small CycWEC spans. Overall the results from the 1:10 scale testing lead to higher performance estimates for a full scale CycWEC than what was predicted from earlier two dimensional simulations and smaller scale experiments