Experimental Investigation of the Hydrodynamic Characteristics of A Modular Floating Structure System Integrated with WEC-Type Floating Artificial Reefs

Integrating wave energy converters (WECs) with offshore platforms offers numerous advantages, such as reducing wave loads, supplying energy to the platform, and cost-sharing in construction. This paper reports an experimental investigation focusing on the hydrodynamic characteristics of a proposed modular floating structure system integrated with WEC-type floating artificial reefs. The proposed system comprises several serially arranged hexagonal floating structures, anchored by tension legs, and integrated with outermost WEC-type floating artificial reefs. A simplified wave energy converter utilizing the relative pitch motion between adjacent modules for energy conversion was constructed in the scale model test. The effects of chain-type modular expansion on the multi-body motion response, mooring tension response, and WEC performance of the system have been thoroughly investigated. The experimental results indicate that increasing the number of hexagonal modules can notably reduce the system’s surge response, particularly under survival sea conditions. The connection of the outermost reef modules slightly increases the tension leg load of the adjacent module, whereas the tension leg load remains relatively consistent across the inner hexagonal modules. Furthermore, through a comparison of the dynamic responses of the hexagonal module connected and unconnected outermost reefs, the good performance in terms of energy conversion and wave attenuation of the WEC-type floating artificial reef modules was effectively validated. The main results from this work can provide useful references for engineering applications involving modular floating structures integrated with WECs.