Waves in the North Sea: powering our future?

Ocean waves contain huge amounts of energy which almost haven’t been exploited up to now. Along the West European coastline the wave power resource is varying between 30 and 70kW/m crest length (Thorpe, 1999). These huge amounts of wave power increase the potential energy capture on the one hand but hamper installation on theother hand. Furthermore the survivability of conversion systems could be in danger in these severe wave conditions.The wave climate in the North Sea is less aggressive due to the sheltering effect of Great Britain. The wave power resource and potential areas for installation of a farm of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) in the North Sea will be discussed during the presentation.Wave energy is a renewable energy type that is becoming more and more important. Many conversion principles have been invented and are currently being developed, tested and improved. Research on power optimization, structural design, etc. is going on while interest of private investors is increasing.Although many concepts have been invented, only a limited number of systems have already been built in prototype size and have experienced real sea trials. Even fewer have reached a commercial stage. Among them is the Pelamis the converter which is probably most ahead of the others. This system, sometimes called ‘sea snake’ consists of four hinging cylinders that produce electricity via a hydraulic intermediate stage. The Portuguese consortium Enersis will shortly install three units of 750kW each in front of the Portuguese coast. Some other systems that have experienced sea trials - mostly at scaled size - are Wave Dragon, FO³, Wave Star, AquaBuOY, OPT Power Buoy, Pico power plant, Limpet device,… Some of these systems will be treated more in detail during the presentation

Optimal pattern of interacting wave power devices

The contribution of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) to the renewable energy supply is continuously rising. To produce a considerable amount of electricity, wave power devices or WECs need to be placed in a farm.In a farm WECs interact and the amount of produced electricity is affected to a certain extent, depending on the lay-out of the farm. In order to find the optimal lay-out WECs are studied in a numerical mild-slope type model, generally used for wave propagation in coastal applications. The existing model is adapted by simulating the energy extraction of a WEC through sponge layers.The adjusted model can be used to study the optimal lay-out and electricity production of a farm

Bottom slamming on heaving point absorber wave energy devices

Oscillating point absorber buoys may rise out of the water and be subjected to bottom slamming upon re-entering the water. Numerical simulations are performed to estimate the power absorption, the impact velocities and the corresponding slamming forces for various slamming constraints. Three buoy shapes are considered: a hemisphere and two conical shapes with deadrise angles of 30 and 45, with a waterline diameter of 5 m. The simulations indicate that the risk of rising out of the water is largely dependent on the buoy draft and sea state. Although associated with power losses, emergence occurrence probabilities can be significantly reduced by adapting the control parameters. The magnitude of the slamming load is severely influenced by the buoy shape. The ratio between the peak impact load on the hemisphere and that on the 45 cone is approximately 2, whereas the power absorption is only 4-8% higher for the 45° cone. This work illustrates the need to include slamming considerations aside from power absorption criteria in the buoy shape design process and the control strategy

Investigation of vertical slamming on point absorbers

This paper focuses on the impact of vertical slamming on floating point absorber systems and the associated pressures that might be expected when these phenomena occur. In a first part it will be shown how the occurrence probability of slamming can be reduced by implementing a slamming restriction, i.e. by controlling the motion of the point absorber. The impact of these slamming restrictions on power absorption will be discussed. Secondly an investigation is made of the pressures that occur when the buoys are subject to vertical bottom slamming. Analytical results are presented, which give a pressure prediction of an impacting body with conical and hemispherical shape, using Wagner theory. Laboratory experiments have been carried out at Ghent University. Impact pressures were measured during drop tests with both hemispherical and conical buoy shapes. These pressures were measured by ICP pressure sensors with a range up to 345 kPa with small membrane and very high resonance frequency (> 250 kHz). Analytical and physical results are compared and conclusions are drawn

Optimal energy production of interacting wave power devices

The need for renewable energy is rising at light-speed. The increasing energy demand, the greenhouse effect and the approaching exhaustion of conventional energy resources, forces humanity to use energy more economically and to develop alternative energy supplies, a.o. wave energy. A Wave Energy Converter (WEC) converts the kinetic and potential energy in ocean waves into electricity. A single WEC, with a capacity comparable to a classic power plant (e.g. 400MW), is technologically impossible. Therefore arrays of smaller devices, placed in a geometric configuration or ‘farm’, are needed. WECs in a farm interact and the overall power absorption is affected. An optimal pattern of WECs in order to maximise the power absorption is of major importance in the design of a wave farm. At Ghent University, a mild-slope wave propagation model MildWAVE has been developed (Troch, 1998), e.g. to study diffraction patterns in a harbour (Geeraerts et al., 2003) or to study the effect of short-crested waves on wave penetration (Caspeele, 2006). The phase-resolving model is able to generate linear water waves over a mildly varying bathymetry and to calculate instantaneous surface elevations (and velocity potential) throughout the domain. Wave transformation processes such as refraction, shoaling, reflection, transmission and diffraction are simulated intrinsically. The existing model is adapted by simulating the energy extraction and radiation of a WEC through sponge layers (Beels et al., 2006). The adapted numerical model MildWAVE, as presented in this poster, is used to study the optimal lay-out and electricity production of a farm

H2AX phosphorylation at the sites of DNA double-strand breaks in cultivated mammalian cells and tissues

A sequence variant of histone H2A called H2AX is one of the key components of chromatin involved in DNA damage response induced by different genotoxic stresses. Phosphorylated H2AX (γH2AX) is rapidly concentrated in chromatin domains around DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) after the action of ionizing radiation or chemical agents and at stalled replication forks during replication stress. γH2AX foci could be easily detected in cell nuclei using immunofluorescence microscopy that allows to use γH2AX as a quantitative marker of DSBs in various applications. H2AX is phosphorylated in situ by ATM, ATR, and DNA-PK kinases that have distinct roles in different pathways of DSB repair. The γH2AX serves as a docking site for the accumulation of DNA repair proteins, and after rejoining of DSBs, it is released from chromatin. The molecular mechanism of γH2AX dephosphorylation is not clear. It is complicated and requires the activity of different proteins including phosphatases and chromatin-remodeling complexes. In this review, we summarize recently published data concerning the mechanisms and kinetics of γH2AX loss in normal cells and tissues as well as in those deficient in ATM, DNA-PK, and DSB repair proteins activity. The results of the latest scientific research of the low-dose irradiation phenomenon are presented including the bystander effect and the adaptive response estimated by γH2AX detection in cells and tissues