UC Berkeley

In a recent paper by Orazov et al. [On the dynamics of a novel ocean wave energy converter. Journal of Sound and Vibration329 (24) (2010) 5058-5069], a wave energy converter (WEC) was proposed. The converter features a mass modulation scheme and a simple model was used to examine its efficacy. The simple model did not adequately account for the momentum transfer which takes place during the mass modulation. The purpose of the present paper is to account for this transfer and to show that the WEC equipped with a novel and more general mass modulation scheme has the potential to improve its energy harvesting capabilities. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.