Simulating focused wave impacts on point absorber wave energy converters

This study contributes to the Collaborative Computational Project in Wave–Structure Interaction blind test series 2 by numerically investigating the dynamic response of two simplified point absorber wave energy converters (WECs – a hemispherical-bottom cylinder and a cylinder with moon-pool) under the action of focused waves of varying steepness. The open source toolbox OpenFOAM along with its new overset grid functionality is applied and evaluated for the complex flow problem involving both large free surface deformations and large-amplitude motions of floating objects. The quality of the numerically generated focused wave groups is first examined and validated against the experimental data. The effects of both wave steepness and the moon-pool on the dynamic responses and mooring loads of the simplified WECs are then analysed.