Design, Construction and Testing of a Hydraulic Power Take-Off for Wave Energy Converters

This paper presents the construction, mathematical modeling and testing of a scaled universal hydraulic Power Take-Off (PTO) device for Wave Energy Converters (WECs). A specific prototype and test bench were designed and built to carry out the tests. The results obtained from these tests were used to adjust an in-house mathematical model. The PTO was initially designed to be coupled to a scaled wave energy capture device with a low speed and high torque oscillating motion and high power fluctuations. Any Energy Capture Device (ECD) that fulfils these requirements can be coupled to this PTO, provided that its scale is adequately defined depending on the rated power of the full scale prototype. The initial calibration included estimation of the pressure drops in the different components, the pressurization time of the oil inside the hydraulic cylinders and the volumetric efficiency of the complete circuit. Since the overall efficiency measured during the tests ranged from 0.69 to 0.8 and the dynamic performance of the PTO was satisfactory, the results are really promising and it is believed that this solution might prove effective in real devices.

Diseño de una máquina para la realización de ensayos de impacto.

[ES]El objetivo de este trabajo es plantear el diseño de una máquina para la realización de ensayos de impacto que pueda ser utilizada por el equipo Formula Student de la Escuela. El equipo necesita probar la valía de su parachoques en unas condiciones que este artefacto simulará. Para ello, tras justificar las soluciones elegidas mediante los cálculos correspondientes, nos valdremos del programa Solidworks. Con la ayuda de las ventajas de ese software se dibujará el diseño propuesto y se podrá analizar la máquina detalladamente.