Comparative Study on Dynamic Response of a Wave Energy Converter with Two Different Mooring Systems

As the occurrence of utilization of fiber mooring ropes for wave energy converters (WECs), dynamic response of wave energy converters with fiber mooring ropes should be investigated for the station-keeping of the WECs. However, capturing the response of mooring systems of WECs is concerned due to the material nonlinearity of mooring lines and highly nonlinear motions of WECs. To understand the dynamic response of mooring systems of WECs, in the present study, a two-body floating point absorber is chosen as the investigated example of wave energy converters. Two types of mooring lines for the mooring system of the WEC are considered by utilizing the open-source WEC-sim code. One is the mooring system, which only uses chains. The other is the hybrid mooring system, which uses chains and polyester ropes. By performing time-domain analysis for the WEC with different mooring lines, the displacements of WEC and the tensions of mooring lines are obtained, respectively. By analyzing the results, the effects of different mooring lines on the WEC’s power take-off and safety are discussed. These investigations can not only contribute to capturing the dynamic response of the WEC’s mooring systems with fiber ropes, but also aid the industry to utilize fiber ropes in the mooring systems of WECs.