This review focuses on the most suitable form of hydrodynamic modeling for the next generation wave energy converter (WEC) design tools. To design and optimize a WEC, it is estimated that several million hours of operation must be simulated, perhaps one million hours of WEC simulation per year of the R&D program. This level of coverage is possible with linear potential flow (LPF) models, but the fidelity of the physics included is not adequate. Conversely, while Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) type computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers provide a high fidelity representation of the physics, the increased computational burden of these models renders the required amount of simulations infeasible. To scope the fast, high fidelity options, the present literature review aims to focus on what CFD theories exist intermediate to LPF and RANS as well as other modeling options that are computationally fast while retaining higher fidelity than LPF.

The International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration Programme for Ocean Energy Systems (OES) initiated the OES Wave Energy Conversion Modelling Task, which focused on the verification and validation of numerical models for simulating wave energy converters (WECs). The long-term goal is to assess the accuracy of and establish confidence in the use of numerical models used in design as well as power performance assessment of WECs. To establish this confidence, the authors used different existing computational modelling tools to simulate given tasks to identify uncertainties related to simulation methodologies: (i) linear potential flow methods; (ii) weakly nonlinear Froude–Krylov methods; and (iii) fully nonlinear methods (fully nonlinear potential flow and Navier–Stokes models). This article summarizes the code-to-code task and code-to-experiment task that have been performed so far in this project, with a focus on investigating the impact of different levels of nonlinearities in the numerical models. Two different WECs were studied and simulated. The first was a heaving semi-submerged sphere, where free-decay tests and both regular and irregular wave cases were investigated in a code-to-code comparison. The second case was a heaving float corresponding to a physical model tested in a wave tank. We considered radiation, diffraction, and regular wave cases and compared quantities, such as the WEC motion, power output and hydrodynamic loading.

This work describes the overall aspects of the Competition on Hydrodynamic Modelling of a Rigid Body, a competition outlined to evaluate different ways to model and simulate the motions of a rigid body in waves. The main objective is to determine a hydrodynamic model for a submerged horizontal cylinder which best predicts a recorded motion to a specific excitation in panchromatic waves. A blind study was performed by the competition participants, i.e., the simulation results were obtained without knowledge of the actual recorded motion of the cylinder. Only the geometry of the cylinder in solid model and the time series of the incoming waves were issued to the participants. The proposed approaches by the participants for modelling the rigid body and the fluid motions are based on the boundary-integral equation methods (potential flow theory) with additional viscous damping forces, where the drag terms are calculated either empirically or via the Navier-Stokes equation method. This paper describes the details about rationale for choice of the rigid body, the experimental tests, the competition criteria and an overview of all modelling approaches proposed by the competition participants.

In wave energy, perhaps more so than any other industry, the economics of product development and product ownership are not separate from the product engineering and design. This is the case because, despite high potential of untapped energy resource and the constant attention of academic research and innovative companies and inventors, as yet no one has verifiably achieved a minimum viable product in a wave energy conversion system.