This project is directed towards establishing the feasibility of using wave energy to provide high-pressure seawater at remote coastal and island locations. This has potential commercial value because of the many possible uses of high-pressure seawater: it can be circulated in onshore aquaculture tanks, passed through a reverse osmosis membrane to produce fresh water, or passed through an impulse turbine to generate electric power. The entire project is focused on the small-scale needs of rural areas in developing countries, where even the provision of a few thousand liters of fresh water per day or a few kilowatts of power would significantly improve basic living conditions and facilitate economic growth. For example, the shoreside provision of ice (requiring both fresh water and electricity) would enhance the cash-earning power of local fisheries. In order to establish the feasibility of this concept, fundamental research is needed on the hydrodynamic behavior of the wave energy absorber, which is a novel structure, entirely submerged beneath the sea surface. In Phase I, a numerical model of the absorber will be developed and validated in a laboratory wave tank. Once validated, the numerical model will be used to predict fullscale performance at representative deployment sites.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: Successful completion of Phases I and II is expected to lead to the Phase III development of commercial systems for providing indigenous and renewable supplies of fresh water and electric power to coastal and island communities.
