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Publications
Monarcha, A. and Fonseca, N. (2012), “Analysis of water depth effects on the wave power resource and the energy captured by a wave energy converter”, Maritime Engineering and Technology, Guedes Soares et al. (Eds),Taylor & Francis Group, London, pp. 595-605
Due to economic reasons related to the mooring system characteristics and to the electrical grid connection, most floating wave energy converters under development are planned for operation in relatively shallow water, typically 30m to 70 m. The limited water depth reduces the wave energy resource as compared to offshore deep water. This paper reviews the existing simplified methods for wave energy spectrum modification as the water depth reduces. The TMA method (Bouws, 1985) is implemented and applied with the aim of assessing both the reduction in the available wave power resource and the energy converted by a floating wave energy converter. This method is based on the hypothesis that the similarity principle for the saturation range of shallow-water spectrum (Kitaigororodskii, 1975) is not restricted to the equilibrium range, but is valid across the entire spectrum. This hypothesis has been proven, thus demonstrating that a finite depth spectrum can be obtained by simply multiplying the corresponding deep water spectrum by a function of the angular frequency. The Pelamis machine and the wave climatology of Figueira da Foz (Portugal) are used as a case study.
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