The main objective of the SURVIWEC project is the development and validation of a numerical tool that will be employed within the project to study the survivability of different point-absorber WECs under extreme wave conditions.
The specific scientific objectives of the project are listed below. Each specific objective is linked to one of the tasks described later in the work plan:
Objective 1: Carry out survivability studies of WECs considering realistic future wave conditions to increase the useful life of WECs in different climate change scenarios.
- Objective 2: Carry out experiments ad hoc for validating the code and other numerical tools.
- Objective 3: Develop the code to simulate wave-WEC interactions, including forces on mooring lines, the PTO system and all features required to simulate floating WECs in one single numerical framework (DualSPHysics).
- Objective 4: Validate the numerical code with experiments carried out in controlled conditions.
- Objective 5: Demonstrate the capability of the developed code to simulate point-absorber WECs considering different safety measures and PTO systems, which aims to support WEC design.
- Objective 6: Extend the impact of the proposed project to other international research activities and organisations that are active in the design of new WEC technologies.
- Objective 7: Release the code to the broader scientific community on an open-source platform so that researchers around the world can further develop a large number of numerical tools used for the design of new WEC technologies.
- Objective 8: Disseminate the results of the project not only to the scientific community, the WEC and ocean energy industry and the local government, but also to the general public.