Protecting coastlines by offshore wave farms: On optimising array configurations using a corrected far-field approximation

Abstract

A rapid-calculation method O(103)∼O(104) times faster than a typical BEM (Boundary Element Method) model is presented for optimising an array (farm) of dual-purpose wave-energy converters (WECs) that both generate electricity and protect a coast. It is known that fast semi-analytical descriptions of the wave field are available based on the far-field approach for a widely-spaced wave farm involving point-absorber-type WECs of small sizes, for which scattered waves are negligible. However, these approaches are inept at dealing with “non-small” WECs with non-simple shapes, for which scattered waves can be both complicated and non-negligible. For these devices, this paper demonstrates that a fa..