Design Software for Flexible Structures in Waves (FlexWEC)

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£342,670

Nov. 1, 2019

July 31, 2021

The FlexWEC project aims to develop a game changing enabling technology that allows general purpose analysis of flexible membranes in ocean-going structures. More than ever before the future is offshore. Offshore renewable energy, offshore aquaculture production, offshore bulk transport and offshore clean-up will form an important part of the future economy and flexible structures are key in all of these segments.

Our solution is a single general purpose analysis software for many customers while the state of the art solution for this market is bespoke software development for each customer. The benefits of general purpose software are well known in other sectors, these include reduced cost for each customer, accelerations in customer workflow, higher levels of functionality (deeper analysis), greater portability of inputs/outputs/operator skills, reduced cost of training, greater reliability.

We will focus on an initial niche in wave energy converters utilising flexible membranes for power absorption from the ocean. The FlexWEC software combines finite element analysis, specialised and efficient computational fluid dynamics for internal and external flows, membrane dynamics and power absorption. The result is analysis software that can model a flexible membrane structure

* located at any point in the water column,
* fixed to a rigid structure or moored
* with a flexible membrane that can be inelastic, elastic or hyperelastic,
* with an open or closed (air-filled, water filled, or combined air and water) internal fluid domain,
* with optional power absorption by turbines placed in the internal flow or from dielectric elastic generators that form part of the membrane structure.

The FlexWEC project builds on past academic research and will focus on the inclusion of more non-linear dynamic analysis capabilities, as well as increased fatigue and ageing analysis to the software. The FlexWEC software will be integrated with the Wave Venture combined engineering and financial software. As a result of this integration, the Wave Venture software will be capable of analysing the entire range of promising types of wave energy converter technologies.