The waves contain a enormous energy for exploitation and also invove great forces for destruction. A seesaw-type wave energy converter is proposed for exploitation of the huge energy, with a double-pontoon floater structure, and a vertical damping plate underwater. Waves drive the floater to produce a roll motion, and the relative rotation motion of the floater and the underwater damping plate is used to generate electricity. The structure is simple and reliable. The ANSYS-AQWA hydrodynamic analysis software is used to numerically calculate the power generation performances of the standard module, the large-area modules and the multi-body arrays. It is shown that with the linear wave of 6.28 s in period and 2 m in wave height, the seesaw device generates a power over one hundreds of watts per square meter, and could be adopted in many applications.

wave energy converter  /  power generation performance  /  ocean energy