Comparison of an Array of Floating Oscillating Water Column Point Absorbers With Compliant and Catenary Shared Mooring Systems

Abstract Numerical models play a crucial role in the development of wave energy extraction technologies, offering a practical and efficient approach to assessing various design options and environmental scenarios. For Floating Oscillating Water Column (FOWC) Point Absorbers (PAs), simulations provide a versatile, flexible, and rapid means to evaluate the performance and feasibility of the project. Thus, this work compares FOWC-PA devices with different shared mooring system configurations. The methodology involves applying external forces to the FOWC-PAs and measuring the resulting displacements to form a watch circle, which helps understand the mooring system’s behavior. Therefore, the main objective is to observe how the watch circle of these mooring systems changes depending on the system configurations. Then, simulations are conducted to evaluate the displacement of the FOWC-PAs under different loading conditions. Compliant Mooring Systems and Catenary Mooring Systems are investigated using the OrcaFlex software. The results show that using a linearized mooring stiffness model is accurate for Compliant Mooring Systems when displacements are kept below 50%. Furthermore, in both linear and nonlinear scenarios, the Catenary Mooring Systems exhibits larger watch circles compared to the Compliant Mooring Systems. These observations highlight the potential of shared mooring strategies as an effective approach for offshore energy applications.