Fundamental Study for Ocean Wave Energy Converter Using a Rack-Pinion Gear Based One-way Mechanism

일방향 기구 기반 랙-피니언 기어를 이용한 병진형 파력발전장치에 대한 기초연구

Sustainable energy generation is becoming extremely imperative due to the expected limitations in current energy resources and to reduce pollution. Especially, because of its considerable energy potential, ocean wave energy has been investigated with regard to power generation. To develop large high power wave generator system, it is important to make a small scale proto type and to test that. Thus the objective of this research is to examine the characteristics of a mechanically excited generator system having small power capacity experimentally. The water reservoir (4 m length, 1.5 m width and 1.8 m depth) having a wave maker to make arbitrary height and period of the water wave was made. The proto type consists of three main parts; a buoy, rack-pinion base one-way mechanism, and a wave generator(Fig.1). The water wave is going up and down and the hexahedron buoy is following the wave. The rack gear attached to the buoy is also going up and down to roll the pinion connected to an electric generator then it produces electricity. The experiments were performed with several conditions of water waves, and the power outputs over 30 W could be measured for some conditions. In future works, to achieve higher performance for the proto type, the effects of primary parameters (buoy shape and mass, etc.) on the system efficiency will be identified.