6. Conclusion
This paper identified the problem of the multidisciplinary nature of wave energy converters. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the effect of the system parameters on the wave energy conversion performance of the heaving point absorber with a submerged body based on the Taguchi method. The parametric study was used to identify the best combination of parameters in a system to deliver the best output performance. The output performance attributes studied were: the maximum absorbed average power, the resonant frequency and the bandwidth of the system. One important aspect looked at was the shape of the submerged body which was altered between a cylinder and a sphere. A cylindrical shape presents excellent hydrodynamic properties with high added mass and radiating capabilities which results in high system inertia and should perform well at low frequencies but it has high viscous damping compared to the spherical shape, which results in a lower absorbed power. Even though the spherical submerged body has less added mass and radiating capabilities, it can capture more power with the low viscous damping. Therefore a study was made to determine the best system in terms of both operational frequency range and captured power.
