Experimental Study for the Resonance Effect of the Power Buoy Amplitude

In this study, laboratory experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to test the performance of resonance power buoy system proposed by Kweon et al.(2010). The system is composed of a linear generator and a mooring buoy. The mover of the linear generator mainly has heave motion driven by vertical oscillation of the buoy. In this system, the velocity discrepancy between the mover and the buoy makes electricity. However, ocean wave energy as a natural resource around Korean peninsula is comparatively small and the driving force for producing electricity is not enough for commercialization. Therefore, it is necessary that the buoy motion be amplified by using resonance characteristics. In order to verify the resonance effects on the test power buoy, the experimental investigations were conducted in the large wave flume (length of 110 m, width of 8 m, maximum depth of 6 m) equipped with regular and random plunger wave generator. The resonance draft of test power buoy is designed for the corresponding period of incident wave, 1.96 sec. Regular wave test results show that the heave response amplitude operator(RAO) by a test buoy has the amplification of 5.66 times higher compared to the wave amplitude at the resonance period. Test results of random waves show that the buoy has the largest spectrum area of 20.73 times higher at the point of not the resonance period but the shorter one of 1.85 sec. Therefore this study suggests the resonance power buoy for wave power generation for commercial application in the case of the coastal and oceanic area with smaller wave energy.