In 2018, Isfahan University of Technology (IUT), succeeded in obtaining a research Grant of 55,000 Euro from the Alexander Von Humboldt (Avh) for a joint research project with the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Germany, for development of a point absorber two body wave energy converter (PA-2B-WEC). This kind of wave energy converter consist of a floating body and a submerged body which oscillate vertically under their interaction with sea waves. The relative motion of the two bodies creates a reciprocating motion. The reciprocating motion is converted to a rotational motion. The rotational motion, then, drives a DC generator and produces electrical energy, in a power take-off system (PTO). The project consists of numerical modeling of the power generation of the WEC, size optimization, PTO design, power control optimization, together with construction and test of the model in a wave tank. The numerical results and experimental results are compared in order to develop suitable tools for analyzing a real size WEC operating on the sea surface.
The present project is being implemented by four PhD students (two Iranian PhD students namely S. Rezaie and A. Rahimi, supervised by Dr. J. Parvizian and Dr sh. Mansoorzadeh from IUT and two German students supervised by prof. Duster from TUHH) The converter has been designed and built in the Research Institute for Subsea Science and Technology of IUT. All the tests required for its development and optimization are being performed in the hydrodynamic laboratory of this research institute.
