Professor Qingwei Ma Tries to Unlock the Potential of Ocean Wave Vitality – Watts Up With That?

[I wrote a research paper in high school in the 70’s about wave and tidal energy production, as well as OTEC, ocean thermal energy conversion. Wave energy looked liked the worst of the three back then. It probably still is.~charles]

The City, University of London scientist will lead the development of a new generation modeling suite that combines machine learning techniques to ensure the survivability of wave energy converters in marine environments

CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON

Announce the announcement

PICTURE: WAVE ENERGY AT SEA show more CREDIT: MOCEAN ENERGY

City, University of London Professor of Hydrodynamics, Professor Qingwei Ma, will help the UK meet its net zero CO2 emissions target by developing cutting edge new wave energy technologies.

With the support of a £ 1m research grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Professor Ma will develop the WavE suite, a new generation modeling suite for the Survivability of wave energy converters in marine environments.

Professor Ma’s project will build on the UK’s leading role in ocean wave energy to address challenges for devices that capture the energy generated by waves and convert it into a renewable source of electricity.

He says there is a long history of research into wave energy converters (WECs) “but there are still many challenges to be overcome before they can become fully effective, reliable and economical”.

“One of the challenges is the lack of robust modeling tools to assess the survivability of WECs in extreme marine environments that cause extreme loads and large responses. Such numerical modeling tools should be able to deal with breaking waves and two-phase flows and accurately estimate the effect of viscosity in turbulent conditions. Meanwhile, they need to be fast enough for engineers to simulate the cases within practical time scales for design. “

With the support of Dr. Shiqiang Yan, the project will develop a novel numerical modeling suite by combining different models and proposing new numerical approaches and machine learning techniques that are more accurate and require less computational effort. The modeling suite can automatically switch to very complex simulations only when needed and to simple simulations depending on the conditions under which the WECs are operating.

The WavE Suite project creates a new collaboration with leading academics from Imperial College, University of Edinburgh, University of Bath, Cardiff University, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and leading WEC -Developers including Mocean in Scotland, CorPower Ocean in Sweden, Guangzhou Institute for Energy Conversion (GIEC) in China and BiMEP in Spain.

Professor Ma received the CH Kim Award in 2016 from the International Society for Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE). He is the first graduate from a UK university and the second from Europe to receive the award. He also received the Vice Chancellor Award 2015 for outstanding achievements in learning and teaching

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From EurekAlert!

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