Wave Energy Converter SIMulator Released

WEC-Sim (Wave Energy Converter SIMulator) is an open source wave energy converter simulation tool being developed as a joint effort between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind and Water Power Technologies Office.

The wave energy converter developers and researchers have informed that WEC-Sim is now available for download.

The code is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK using the multi-body dynamics solver SimMechanics. WEC-Sim has the ability to model devices that are comprised of rigid bodies, power-take-off systems, and mooring systems. Simulations are performed in the time-domain by solving the governing WEC equations of motion in 6 degrees-of-freedom as described in the WEC-Sim Theory Manual.

The NREL/SNL team said that it would like to receive feedback on how WEC-Sim can be improved in the future.