Section: Application Domains

Sustainable energy

One of the booming lines of business is the field of renewable and decarbonated energies. In particular in the marine realm, several processes have been proposed in order to produce electricity thanks to the recovering of wave, tidal and current energies. We may mention water-turbines, buoys turning variations of the water height into electricity or turbines motioned by currents. Although these processes produce an amount of energy which is less substantial than in thermal or nuclear power plants, they have smaller dimensions and can be set up more easily.

The fluid energy has kinetic and potential parts. The buoys use the potential energy whereas the water-turbines are activated by currents. To become economically relevant, these systems need to be optimized in order to improve their productivity. While for the construction of a harbour, the goal is to minimize swell, in our framework we intend to maximize the wave energy.

This is a complex and original issue which requires a fine model of energy exchanges and efficient numerical tools. In a second step, the optimisation of parameters that can be changed in real-life, such as bottom bathymetry and buoy shape, must be studied. Eventually, physical experiments will be necessary for the validation.