Harvesting energy using simultaneous rotational and translational motions of a breakwater

Ocean wave energy is a dense, huge, and time-independent renewable energy resource. In the past decades, many types of research have been carried out to protect offshore and nearshore structures against ocean waves and convert this energy into useful energy. This study presents a reliable system that can break the waves and convert their energy into electricity. To do so, a mechanism with two plates, which can rotate and linearly move, is introduced. The plate motions are transmitted to the gearbox, whose output rotates a DC generator. In order to study the mechanical behavior of the presented mechanism, the governing equation of motion is derived and solved numerically. Numerical results are validated by experimental ones. Besides, the effect of changing the ocean wave properties on the output electrical power of the system is studied. Moreover, the wave transmission coefficients for the mechanism according to the different dimensionless incident wave numbers are experimentally obtained.