Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416

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Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Development of a numerical model of the CECO wave energy converter

using computational fluid dynamics
William Finnegan a, b, *, Paulo Rosa-Santos c, d, Francisco Taveira-Pinto c, d, Jamie Goggins a, b
a
Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland
b
MaREI Centre, Ryan Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland
c
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), Portugal
d
Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research of the University of Porto (CIIMAR), Portugal

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: As the world strives to remove its reliance on fossil fuels, wave energy presents a reliable source of renewable
ANSYS CFX energy with a very high potential. Numerical simulations offer an inexpensive alternative, in comparison to
Marine physical modelling, for the development of wave energy converters. In this paper, a computational fluid dy­
RANSE modelling
namics model of the CECO wave energy converter (WEC) has been developed using the commercial software
Viscous effects
Wave energy
ANSYS CFX. In order to reduce on the computational resources required, a 2-dimensional model of this sloped
Wave-structure interaction (combination of heave and surge) motion WEC has been developed and then successfully validated with
experimental results from physical model tests, demonstrating the capability of such models to accurately
describe the response of WECs. The validated numerical model was then used to investigate the non-linear effects
on the motions of CECO and to obtain more insights in relation to wave loading during a wave cycle and the
viscous effects associated to the dissipation of energy in the flow around its floaters. The water particle velocity
and vorticity around CECO and the heave and surge loadings on CECO, while it is in operation, are analysed and
discussed. The numerical model, not only aid in the development of a new and enhanced geometry for CECO but,
also, it can be used to model and analyse similar WECs.

1. Introduction
Ocean wave energy is one of the world’s most powerful forms of
energy and the energy density in ocean waves is the highest among
renewable energy sources (Clément et al., 2002). In addition, Falnes
(2007) shows that the power flow intensity of ocean waves is up to five
times larger than for the wind that creates them, being, therefore, an
indirect form of solar power. Furthermore, ocean wave energy is avail­
able up to 90% of the time, which makes it a far more dependable source
of energy when compared to the other renewable energy resources,
where solar and wind are available 20–30% of the time. Another
advantage of ocean wave energy is, since most of these waves travel long
distances, being usually out of phase with wind energy and, conse­
quently, wave energy converters (WECs) may easily and efficiently be
integrated with other renewable energy harvesting technologies, such as
offshore wind turbines. However, as with any form of energy, there is a
number of drawbacks when trying to harness it. In turn, one of the main
reasons why this major natural resource has remained unexploited is
that it is very variable and largely random over several time-scales: from
wave to wave, with sea state and seasonal variations (Falcão, 2010).
Another challenge in harnessing this form of energy is the harsh and
secluded environment where the most power dense waves exist; that is
in deep waters (generally more than 40 m) that are several kilometres
offshore (Kempener and Neumann, 2014).
The concept of harnessing ocean wave energy is by no means a new
idea. However, the topic only gained international interest in the 1970’s
with the publication of Stephen Salter’s ground-breaking paper on his
Wave Energy Duck (Salter, 1974). Since then, over a thousand patents
have been issued for wave energy converters (WECs) (The United States
Patent), incorporating a variety of methods. However, as of yet, no
‘winning’ WEC design has been established and several concepts are
presently being developed and optimized.
The CECO wave energy converter is a sloped motion concept, which
is illustrated in Fig. 1, being developed at the Faculty of Engineering of
the University of Porto (FEUP), Portugal, since 2012. The experimental
proof-of-concept of this WEC showed quite promising efficiencies

* Corresponding author. Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland.
E-mail address: william.finnegan@nuigalway.ie (W. Finnegan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2020.108416
Received 18 March 2020; Received in revised form 24 November 2020; Accepted 25 November 2020
Available online 9 December 2020
0029-8018/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
W. Finnegan et al.
Fig. 1. CECO wave energy converter, where (a) and (b) are concept sketches of
the tested CECO unit, (c) the physical model used for the experimental proof of
concept and (d) the PTO housed inside the reference supporting structure.
converting ocean wave energy (Rosa-Santos et al., 2015) and since then
it has undergone a significant number of developments, most of them
using numerical models based on the Boundary Element Method (BEM),
comprehensively validated with data from experimental tests, for
example (López et al., 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, b; Rodríguez et al., 2018,
2019). Those studies assessed, for instance, the influence of the power
take-off (PTO) damping characteristics (López et al., 2017b), PTO
inclination (López et al., 2018a, b), local water depth (Ramos et al.,
2018) and wave climate seasonality (Ramos et al., 2017) on the per­
formance of CECO and important insights were obtained for the subse­
quent improvement of this technology. A detailed overview of the
experimental and numerical work carried so far is presented in Rosa-­
Santos et al. (2019).
The use of BEM models is frequent up to intermediate stages of
development of WECs, for example in Pastor et al. (Pastor and Liu,
2014), Day et al. (2015), and Sjokvist et al. (Sjökvist et al., 2017). In
particular, to analyse their performance under typical operational con­
ditions, due to the large number of variables/parameters that should be
investigated at those stages to maximize power-harvesting capabilities
for low to moderate sea states, since these models are able to provide a
sufficiently accurate solution and, simultaneously, present a very good
compromise between accuracy and computational time. However, at
more advanced stages of WEC development, the need to include viscous
and other non-linear effects as well as phenomena like wave splash,
overtopping, and flow separation, may impose the use of more advanced
and computationally demanding modelling tools. This is especially valid
for the analysis of the survivability of WECs under extreme wave events.
In recent years, with the development in computational power, the
use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for modelling offshore
structures, such as WECs, has grown in popularity. A number of early
studies (Elangovan, 2011; Hadzic et al., 2005; Lal and Elangovan, 2008;
Liang et al., 2010; Sriram et al., 2006) used numerical wave tanks, which
were based on CFD, to explore the interaction of ocean waves with
floating structures. Consequently, a methodology for simulating linear
regular waves and wave-structure interaction in a numerical wave tank
was developed by Finnegan and Goggins (2012) and this study was
subsequently advanced to explore linear irregular waves in (Finnegan
and Goggins, 2015). There are a number of examples where CFD models
have been used to assess the performance of WECs. For example, Lou
et al. (Luo et al., 2014a) used a 2-dimensional CFD analysis to explore
2
Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416
the efficiency of a fixed oscillating water column WEC using a fully
nonlinear wave tank with the Fluent CFD software. This study was then
advanced in Lou et al. (Luo et al., 2014b) to investigate the performance
of a heave-only oscillating water column WEC. Similarly, Anbarsooz
et al. (2016) used the commercial CFD software, ANSYS Fluent 15.0, to
explore the interaction of steep waves on a fixed oscillating water col­
umn WEC. Chen et al. (2017) developed a 3-dimensional mathematical
model, based on the Navier Stokes equations, for the hydrodynamics and
structural dynamics of a floating point-absorbing WEC and compared
the results to a BEM analysis, and it was found that the difference in
behaviour can be significant and vary considerably, depending on wave
height. A detailed and comprehensive review of CFD-based numerical
wave tanks for WEC experiments has been compiled by Windt et al.
(2018), where the existing literature was categorised in order to present
the current best practice guidelines and give recommendations for any
deficits in the current state-of-the-art.
In this study, the ANSYS CFX package was used to implement a full-
scale RANS-VOF numerical model of CECO, which was then validated
using experimental results in a two-step approach: qualitatively, by
comparing the motions of CECO and the disturbance induced in the
water mass both in the physical and numerical models, and quantita­
tively, by comparing the motion time series and motion RAOs of CECO.
Once validated, the numerical model was used to carry out a broad study
of the hydrodynamic behaviour of CECO and analyse the effect of non-
linear wave-structure interaction between the ocean waves and this
WEC aiming at a better understanding of wave energy dissipation
mechanisms and the assessment of its efficiency and dynamics namely
under extreme wave conditions.
The wave input on one side of the model was a numerical input using
Airy’s linear wave theory, as opposed to the paddles used in the wave
tank, and the waves were damped at the other side of the model using
numerical damping by manipulating the fluid viscosity, as opposed to a
beach that is used in the wave tank. During the investigation, an inter­
mediate water depth (16 m), which corresponds to the water depth
tested in the wave tank in prototype values, was explored. As the action
of the wind over the ocean surface can generate oscillation in the range
of circa 3 s to around 20 or 25 s, the range of wave conditions analysed
had to be narrowed. Hence, in this paper, only the periods that are more
frequent and have a higher contribution to the local energy resource
were considered, which are wind generated waves, in the period 8–14 s.
Regular wave conditions were used, but both the height and period of
the waves were varied in the simulations. The response of the device was
then normalised with respect to the wave height to calculate the
response amplitude operator (RAO) for the device and investigate its
variance with wave period. The RAO from the numerical model were
then compared to the monitored results from the physical model testing
of a lowly damped CECO wave energy converter and found to be in good
agreement for a wave period range of 8–14 s.
This paper is structured as follows. The CECO concept and the
methodology used to develop the CFD model is described in Section 2. A
model validation for the CFD model against experimental trials is pre­
sented in Section 3.1. The model is then used to analyse and characterize
the performance of CECO in operation (Sections 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4).
Finally, the summary and conclusions are given in Section 4.
2. Methodology
2.1. Aim and objectives
The primary aim of this study is to investigate the interaction of
ocean waves on the CECO wave energy converter during operation,
especially under energetic sea states, for which the approaches based on
BEM models become inappropriate. This study is performed by devel­
oping a 2-dimensional numerical wave tank model of CECO using CFD.
However, in order to achieve this aim, the following objectives must be
achieved:
W. Finnegan et al. Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416

• To develop a 2-dimensional numerical wave tank model of CECO as:

using the methodology specified in Finnegan et al. (Finnegan and ( ) ( ( ))
Goggins, 2012); ∂u1 ∂u1 ∂u1 ∂p ∂2 u1 ∂ ∂u1 ∂u2
ρ + u1 + u2 =− + 2μ 2 + μ + + F1 (2)
• To validate the results of the analysis against experimental data ∂t ∂x ∂y ∂x ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂x
(Marinheiro et al., 2015); ( ) ( ( ))
• To investigate the performance of CECO during operation in deep ∂u2 ∂u2 ∂u2 ∂p ∂2 u2 ∂ ∂u1 ∂u2
ρ + u1 + u2 =− + 2μ 2 + μ + + F2 − ρg
water conditions; ∂t ∂x ∂y ∂y ∂y ∂x ∂y ∂x
• To evaluate the interaction of the water waves on CECO during (3)
operation, with a focus on the more extreme sea states.
where t is time, ρ is the water density, x is the horizontal distance from
the wavemaker, y is the vertical height from the Still Water Level (SWL)
2.2. CECO wave energy converter
and increases with depth, u1 is the horizontal flow velocity, u2 is the
vertical flow velocity, F1 is the body force on the fluid in the horizontal
The CECO wave energy converter is a floating-point wave energy
direction, F2 − ρg is the body force on the fluid in the vertical direction, p
absorber that oscillates due to the wave force on its floaters along a
is pressure and μ is dynamic viscosity.
straight-sloped path at a given inclination (usually 45⁰), defined by the
In this study, the volume of fluid (VoF) method, which enables multi-
inclination of the guiding rods on the sliding frame (Fig. 1(b)). CECO is
phase modelling, has been applied in conjunction with numerical wave
made up of two main components – a fixed supporting structure and two
probes to determine the position of the free surface. This method, which
lateral floaters, which are the moving parts that are excited by the
was also employed by Liang et al. (2010), adds another governing
incoming waves. The fixed supporting structure is in place perpendic­
equation, given by:
ular to the translational direction of the floaters in operation and they
are connected by a central frame (Fig. 1). ∂qi ∂qi ∂qi
+ u1 + u2 = 0, i = 1, 2 (4)
The unique design of CECO allows for both the surge (horizontal) and ∂t ∂x ∂y
heave (vertical) motions induced by the incoming ocean waves to be
converted into a single degree of freedom translational motion by the 2
∑
where qi is the volume fraction of the fluid i with qi = 1, where ‘1’
two floaters, which is then transformed into useable electrical energy i=1
using a PTO system that is installed inside the supporting structure. The denotes air and ‘2’ water. The free surface is then approximated as at the
PTO system includes a rack (attached to the central frame) – pinion position of the minimum of value |q1 – q2 | along the model.
mechanism (connected to the generator shaft) and a DC generator. The
possibility of tuning the natural frequency of CECO motion with the 2.4. CFD model development
angle of its translation path is also a distinctive characteristic. For the
nominal inclination and submergence volume of the floaters (45◦ and 2.4.1. Model geometry
60%, respectively), the free-oscillation frequency of CECO is approxi­ The CECO wave energy converter is comprised of two structural
mately 8 s. Table 1 presents the main dimensions of CECO. Further parts – the support structure and the floaters, which have been detailed
details on CECO can be found in (Rosa-Santos et al., 2019), which details in Section 2.2. In order to reduce the computational cost of the simu­
the development of CECO from the initial concept to its current state. lation and, subsequently, investigate the accuracy of the model, a 2-
dimensional representation of CECO’s floater has been modelled, see
2.3. Governing equations Fig. 2. Therefore, the support structure and the sliding frame, which are
shown in Fig. 2, are not considered in this study. The computational
The analysis presented in this study has been performed using the domain has been dived into two parts – the working domain and the
commercial CFD software ANSYS CFX, where the solver is based on the wave dissipation zone – and the structure has been modelled as a rigid
finite volume technique (nc. and Rel, 2009). This technique divides the body, with wall boundaries in the computational domain. The overall
computational domains into sub-regions of finite volume and discretises length of the model is 250 m and the overall height is 40 m, where the
the governing equations in order to solve them iteratively over each SWL is 16 m (full scale values). In addition, the CECO structure is located
sub-region. Therefore, an approximation of the value of each variable at at a distance greater than 3 times the water depth from the wave inflow
points throughout the domain is achieved. (Dean and Dalrymple, 1984), which allows reflected waves to dissipate
The governing equations that need to be solved by the ANSYS CFX in order to minimise their effect the generated wave.
solver are the mass continuity equation, which is given as:
∂ρ ∂(ρu1 ) ∂(ρu2 )
+ + =0 (1)
∂t ∂x ∂y

and the Reynold’s-averaged Navier-Stokes equations, which are given

Table 1
Main characteristics of CECO (full-scale).
Floaters

shape semi-cylindrical

diameter 8.00 m
width 4.50 m
draught 4.60 m
Connecting structure
length 20.00 m
width 5.68 m
inclination 45◦
Reference structure Fig. 2. Schematic of the CECO wave energy converter (López et al., 2017a) and
shape cylindrical
the 2-dimensional representation of the device’s floater buoy, which is used to
diameter 4.00 m
model the device in ANSYS CFX.

3
W. Finnegan et al.
2.4.2. Mesh development
The mesh for the computational domain has been created based on
the methodology developed in Finnegan and Goggins (2012), which
includes a comprehensive convergence study for generating a mesh for a
numerical wave tanks. Mesh refinement was performed using two
methods, which are specific to ANSYS CFX - the ‘body of influence’
method and the ‘sphere of influence’ method – that allow refinement at
specific regions within the mesh. The mesh has been refined along the
SWL (from 4 m below to 4 m above the SWL along the length of the
model) using the ‘body of influence’ method and around the structure
using the ‘sphere of influence’ method, where the maximum element
size in both cases has been defined as 300 mm. A maximum element size
has also been defined in the remainder of the domain as 1000 mm.
Therefore, the mesh contains 44,400 elements, which have 87,100
nodes, and is shown in Fig. 3 that includes a close-up of the mesh around
the CECO structure. The average aspect ratio of the mesh is 8.5, which
has a maximum aspect ratio of 77.
2.4.3. CFD setup
The 2-dimensional numerical wave tank model of CECO has pre­
dominantly been developed in line with the methodology specified in
Finnegan and Goggins (2012), along with incorporating aspects devel­
oped in Finnegan and Goggins (2015) for specifying the input wave
elevation, specifying the input water particle velocities and creating a
numerical dissipation zone, which are discussed in this section.
A numerical wavemaker has been used, similar to Finnegan and
Goggins (2015), where the wave has been specified at the ‘wave inflow’
boundary (shown in Fig. 3), which uses the ‘opening’ boundary type
with specified fluid velocities in ANSYS CFX. This is similar to the
technique used by Mousaviraad et al. (2010), who specified a linear
potential solution at the input boundary in order to generate linear input
waves. The wave elevation, η(t), is defined using the following equation
from Airy’s linear wave theory:
H No damping is included in the CECO numerical model and, therefore,
η(t) = cos(− ωt − ε) (5)
2 the experimental results for the least damping cases (i.e. cases where no
where H is the wave height, ω is the angular frequency of the wave, t is
time and ε is the phase angle. The associated water particle velocities are
defined using the following equations from Airy’s linear wave theory:
H cosh(k0 y’)
u1 (t) = ω cos(− ωt − ε) (6)
2 sinh(k0 d)
and
H sinh(k0 y’)
u2 (t) = ω sin(− ωt − ε) (7)
2 sinh(k0 d)
where k0 is the wavenumber, y is the vertical distance from the base of
′
the model and d is the water depth. In addition, a numerical method for
dissipating the waves at the end of the numerical wave tank was applied,
similar to Finnegan and Goggins (2015), where the viscosity of the water
increases towards the end of the computational domain using the
Fig. 3. 2-dimensional mesh used in the study.
4
Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416
following equation:
⎧ /
8.899x10− 4 kg ms, x < 150m
⎪
⎨
μ= (
x − 150 ​ m
) (8)
⎪
⎩ 8.899x10− 4 kg /ms + 125000kg /ms, x ≥ 150m
100 ​ m
In operation, the floater of CECO oscillates at a 45⁰ angle to the free
surface. In order to reproduce this movement in the numerical model, a
local coordinate system is set up so the floater moves in a single degree
of motion, where the structure moves in the x’ direction detailed in
Fig. 4. The CECO structure is defined as a rigid body, using the ‘wall’
boundary type in ANSYS CFX, where the body motion is accounted for
through deformation of the mesh around the rigid body.
2.5. Regular wave cases
For the purpose of validating the accuracy of the numerical CFD
model of CECO, 8 regular wave cases were used, whose characteristics
are detailed in Table 2. These cases have been selected from the
experimental data available for the purpose of validation, while
providing adequate representation within the wave period range from 8
to 14 s, where two wave heights were taken at each wave period.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Model validation
Firstly, the behaviour of CECO observed in the CFD numerical model
is qualitatively analysed using, as reference, the experimental model
tests. Following this, in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the nu­
merical model that has been developed in this study, the results of the
numerical CFD simulations have been compared to the results from the
experimental testing for the eight regular wave cases detailed in Table 2.
external damping is applied to the system, only the inherent damping
due to the movement of CECO on the sliding frame) are used to validate
the numerical model. A graphical summary of this comparison is shown
in Fig. 5, which presents the Response Amplitude Operator (RAO) as a
function of the wave period, which is calculated using the following
equation:
ζ
RAO = (9)
A
where ζ is half of the peak-to-peak amplitude of CECO response motion
along its single degree of freedom (in the x’-direction) and A is the
amplitude of the regular wave.
In addition to the eight regular wave cases, the obtained numerical
model results have also been compared to a summary of the BEM results
presented in (López et al., 2017a). Overall, it can be seen that the
agreement between the numerical and experimental results is quite
Fig. 4. Illustration showing the variation in the viscosity of the water over the
length of the numerical wave tank (in the ‘operational’ and ‘dissipation’ zones).
W. Finnegan et al. Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416

Table 2
Characteristics of the regular wave cases used in this analysis.
Regular wave case no. Wave period (s) Wave height (m)

1 8 1
2 8 2
3 10 2
4 10 3
5 12 2
6 12 3
7 14 3
8 14 4

Fig. 6. Graphical summary of the numerical model results compared to the

results from experimental testing for the regular wave cases detailed in Table 2,
where the numerical model results are in red and experimental data are in blue
for wave heights of 1m (ᴏ), 2m (+), 3m (Δ) and 4m (x) and the solid line (──)
represents a summary of the results from a BEM analysis presented in López
et al. (López et al., 2017a). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this
figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Table 3
Normalised RMSE for the comparison of CECO response between the numerical
CFD and experimental tests for the 8 regular wave cases used in this analysis.
Regular wave case no. Wave period (s) Wave height (m) Normalised RMSE

Fig. 5. Schematic of the local coordinate system used to describe the single
degree of motion of CECO’s floater.
satisfactory and that there is no clear trend defined when the RAOs
obtained from the BEM in (López et al., 2017a) and CFD approaches are
compared, Fig. 5. It should also be mentioned that the best agreement
between experimental and CFD numerical results was observed for the
case T = 14s and H = 4m, which is the most extreme sea state consid­
ered, although generalization of this conclusion is counter-productive
due to the limited amount of cases considered in this study.
The CFD model validation also includes the comparison of the nu­
merical results to the results from experimental testing for the 8 regular
wave cases detailed in Table 2 in the time domain. Therefore, the dy­
namic response of the CECO floater in the x’ direction (see Fig. 4) was
compared for both the numerical model and experimental tests in the
time domain, Fig. 6. The free surface wave elevation is also included at
the location of CECO, which has been modelled with no structure pre­
sent in the numerical wave tank.
In order to compare quantitatively the two responses (from the nu­
merical CFD and experimental tests), which are presented in Fig. 6, the
normalised root mean square error (RMSE) method is used. In this
analysis, the RMSE is normalised against the amplitude of the response
of CECO in the experimental tests, where the RMSE is calculated as
follows:
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
∑N ( )2
n=1 fexp,n − fCFD,n
RMSE = (10)
N and the wave period is 10 s, is used to examine the movement of the
Where N is the number of sample points, fexp,n and fCFD,n is the response
of the experimental test and the numerical CFD test at sample point n,
respectively. The normalised RMSE for this comparison are given in
1 8 1 0.07
2 8 2 0.26
3 10 2 0.25
4 10 3 0.17
5 12 2 0.28
6 12 3 0.33
7 14 3 0.28
8 14 4 0.57
Table 3 for each of the 8 regular wave cases examined.
For the regular wave cases 1 and 4 (T = 8, 10 s), the results from the
numerical model are in very good agreement with the experimental
ones, which can be seen qualitatively in Fig. 6, as the normalised RMSE
of the comparison is 0.07 and 0.17 (Table 3), respectively. The com­
parison for regular wave cases 2, 3, 5 and 7 have reasonable agreement,
where the comparison between the experimental and numerical CFD
results have a normalised RMSE of between 0.25 and 0.28, which can be
seen in Table 3. The agreement is much less satisfactory for the other
regular wave cases, where the comparison for regular wave cases 6 and 8
have a normalised RMSE of 0.33 and 0.57, respectively, although for
case 8 the peak-to-peak amplitudes of motion have been well repro­
duced numerically. It is also worth mentioning that the numerical time
series show some non-linear patterns for the higher wave periods, but
those do not correspond exactly to what is observed in their experi­
mental counterparts. Differences between the experimental and the
numerical results are expected due to the simplifications introduced in
the modelling: 2-dimensional representation of one CECO’s floater and
the non-consideration of the reference supporting structure and of the
sliding frame.
3.2. Interaction of waves with CECO
A single case study, regular wave case 4, where the wave height is 3 m
water particles around CECO as it oscillates under the action of incident
waves. This regular wave case is selected as it is close to the desired
operating period of CECO while in operation. Fig. 7 shows snapshots of
CECO’s floater moving as it oscillates in operation from its highest

5
W. Finnegan et al.
Fig. 7. Comparison of CECO response between the numerical CFD and experimental tests for the 8 regular wave cases, which are detailed in Table 2, including the
wave elevation from the numerical CFD model.
position (in the left three images) to its mean position (in the middle
three images) to its lowest position (in the right three images).
The top three images in Fig. 8 show the position of CECO’s floater
during the numerical simulation at 32 s, 40.6 s and 48 s, which shows
CECO at its highest position, at its mean position and at its lowest po­
sition. The middle set of images in Fig. 8 shows the corresponding water
particle velocities around the floater as it oscillates, where high veloc­
ities can be seen in its front and at the sharp corners at the top and
bottom of the floater. High velocities can also be observed in the back of
the floater when CECO is at its mean position (of approximately 4 m/s).
The corresponding vorticity caused by these water particle velocities is
shown in the bottom three images in Fig. 8 where the magnitude of the
water vorticity has been calculated. It is evident from the lower six
images that there are non-linear effects on the structure as it interacts
with the incoming waves. These non-linear effects are not accounted for
in frequency and time-domain analysis of wave-structure interactions
based on BEM. Therefore, the use of CFD gives a greater insight into
these effects and their potential impact in real-world operation.
The results summarised in Fig. 7 also give an indication of how to
improve the structural geometry of CECO’s floaters. There is an increase
in the velocity of the water particles around the sharp corners at the top
and bottom of floater which is evident in the middle three images of
Fig. 7, along with a higher absolute vorticity at these points in the cor­
responding figures (in the bottom three images of Fig. 7). This would
suggest that the turbulence and the corresponding energy dissipation
caused by CECO due to these geometric features could be significantly
reduced by smoothing the corners. This may lead to an improved
6
Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416
performance of CECO due to a reduction in losses due to viscous effects,
or viscous forces, around the wave energy converter when in operation,
especially for the most energy sea states.
3.3. Characterization of wave loading
As discussed in Section 2.2, CECO is a sloped motion WEC that
operates along an oblique direction that is a combination of surge and
heave motions, however the wave induced loads acting in the floaters
were never analysed in detailed. The loads presented in this section are
for a full-scale CECO, in which each floater is 4.5 m wide, and therefore,
since the 2-dimensional numerical CFD model is only 0.05 m wide, the
resulting forces have been scaled up by a factor of 90. In order to
demonstrate the insights that may be gained from using the 2-dimen­
sional CFD numerical model, the regular wave case 4 is used again, to
characterize wave loading on one of CECO’s floaters. The heave force (in
the y-direction), surge force (in the x-direction) and the force in the
oscillating direction (in the x’ direction, Fig. 4) on the floater, as it
operates, is shown in Fig. 9. It is evident from Fig. 9 that in terms of
magnitude the heave force on CECO is the dominant force acting in the
floater. When CECO is stationary (at t = 0 s in the CFD model), the heave
force on a single floater, due to Archimedes’ Principle, is approximately
663 kN. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that the peak-to-peak
amplitude of both surge and heave forces is of the same order of
magnitude and therefore the oscillations of CECO along the x’ direction
are the result of both components, although slightly dominated by the
heave force for the current water depth of 16 m.
W. Finnegan et al.
Fig. 8. Snapshots of the position of CECO and the water elevation (top three
images), the water velocity (middle three images) and the water vorticity
(bottom three images) around CECO during the numerical simulation at 32 s,
40.6 s and 48 s, where the wave height is 3 m and the wave period is 10 s.
Fig. 9. Wave forces on CECO in operation (a) showing the heave, surge and x’-
direction forces, which also incorporates the hydrostatic force, and (b) showing
the corresponding motion response along time.
7
Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416
Fig. 10. The wave forces and position of CECO at 32 s, 40.6 s and 48 s, while in
operation within the numerical model.
The heave and surge forces on CECO’s floater are presented in Fig. 10
at 32 s, 40.6 s and 48 s during its oscillation, similar to the positions
detailed in Fig. 8. When CECO is at its highest position within its
oscillation, it experiences relatively low heave force (approximately
100 kN) compared to when CECO is at its lowest position, where it ex­
periences a much higher heave force (of just over 1000 kN). When CECO
is at its highest position within its oscillation, a similar surge force is
seen of approximately 100 kN as with the heave force in this position.
However, a negative surge force is observed when CECO is at its lowest
position of approximately 200 kN, related to the full submergence of the
floater. This is partially due to Archimedes principle as CECO attempts
to return to the surface.
In summary, the heave force applied in the floater is closely linked
with its submergence level at each time step, which is to be expected.
However, the surge force is associated with the submerged area of the
floater and its direction depends on the direction of the water particles
motions paths. The main advantage of using this energy extraction
system is that CECO floaters utilise the wave forces in both the heave and
surge direction, allowing for more efficient extraction of the available
energy in the incoming waves.
3.4. Varying incoming wave heights
As the wave height of the linear waves is increased, the motion of the
waves stops from obeying the rules of Airy’s linear wave theory as they
become higher-order non-linear waves. The effect of this change can be
seen by examining the response (or RAO) of CECO as the wave height
changes. In this subsection, the wave period is kept constant at 10 s and
the wave height is varied from 2 m to 3 m and then to 4 m, where the
corresponding wave steepness (H/λ) are 0.018, 0.027 and 0.036,
respectively, where λ is the wavelength and is 111.8 m for a wave period
of 10 s at a water depth of 16 m.
The results of varying the wave height can be seen in Fig. 11, where
the RAO of CECO is compared for the three wave heights. In order to
compare the response of CECO to the incoming linear waves of differing
wave heights, the RAO, which normalises that response against the wave
height, is used. Of the three wave heights, when the incoming regular
wave height is 2 m, the RAO is the highest and when the incoming
W. Finnegan et al.
Fig. 11. RAO for CECO for varying incoming wave heights of 2 m, 3 m and 4 m.
regular wave height is 4 m, the RAO is the lowest, which can be seen
inFig. 11 This is due to the waves no longer being linear in nature. This
shows that the response of the structure is no longer directly propor­
tional to the amplitude or height of the incoming waves, as what is
assumed in some hydrodynamic BEM models, which have a much lower
computational cost. Small amplitude waves are defined by the steepness
relation H/λ ≤ 0.03, where, in this study, wave heights on each side of
this limit are explored. This result is important for the developers of
wave energy harvesting technologies when they are predicting the
performance of WECs and justifies the use of more computationally
demanding tools, such as the CFD models, as opposed to some linear
BEM methods, at least when it is of upmost importance to accurately
model the dynamic response of WECs for high amplitude waves.
4. Conclusions
The ANSYS CFX commercial package was used to implement a RANS
numerical model of the CECO wave energy converter. Once validated
using data from experimental tests, the numerical model was used, first,
to carry out an in-depth study of CECO interaction with incident waves
and to characterize the forces action on its floaters during operation. The
validation followed a two-stage approach. First, the dynamics of CECO
were qualitatively analysed having as reference the experimental model
tests. After that, the quantitative validation, using the normalised RMSE
method, is performed to compare the time series of the CECO motion, in
its single degree of freedom, using the results from both physical and
numerical CFD models under selected regular wave conditions. This
analysis showed a reasonably good matching between the physical and
numerical models, in spite of the simplifications that were introduced in
the CFD numerical model. Some numerically obtained motion time se­
ries showed non-linear patterns, but not corresponding exactly to what
was seen in the experimental tests.
The results of this study give an indication of how to improve the
geometric shape of CECO’s floaters, where the identified non-linear
viscous damping effects could be minimised by changing its geometry
at strategic locations, reducing the amount of energy that is dissipated in
each motion cycle. On the other hand, and for the first time, the time
evolution of the wave induced loads acting on the floaters of this sloped
motion wave energy converter were characterized. It is clear that ab­
solute heave forces related to buoyancy dominate, but surge forces are
not negligible, changing their direction according to the wave phase.
The analysis presented in this paper builds on previous work of the
authors and could be applied to a wide variety of marine structures,
though it was primarily developed for analysing the non-linear in­
teractions of ocean waves with wave energy converters. The next phase
of the model development will be to explore new geometries of CECO
using CFD and to examine the interaction of larger waves with CECO as
it operates in deep sea conditions.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
William Finnegan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal
8
Ocean Engineering 219 (2021) 108416
analysis, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
editing. Paulo Rosa-Santos: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition,
Methodology, Resources, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing
- review & editing. Francisco Taveira-Pinto: Funding acquisition, Re­
sources. Jamie Goggins: Funding acquisition, Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This study was performed as part of a Short Term Scientific Mission
(STSM) at FEUP by the first author though the WECANet COST Action
(CA17105). This study was funded in part by the Sustainable Energy
Authority of Ireland (SEAI) through the Ocean ERA-NET Ocean Energy
Prototype Research and Development Programme 2018 as part of the
SEABLADE project (Award no.: 18/OCN/102) and Science Foundation
Ireland (SFI) through the Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland
(MaREI) research centre (Grant no. 12/RC/2302). The second and third
authors would like also to thank the support from the Project OPWEC -
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016882 and PTDC/MAR-TEC/6984/2014, fun­
ded/co-funded by FEDER through COMPETE 2020 – Programa Oper­
acional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and by
Portuguese national funds, through the FCT - Fundação para a Cie^ncia e
a Tecnologia, IP.
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