A Survey of Wave Energy Converter Mechanisms Presented Under the Topological and Functional Viewpoints

Wave energy converter (WEC) mechanisms have been increasingly attracting the interest of institutions and companies, because of the energetic crisis and the energy demanded by small off-grid off-shore systems. Examples of WEC systems design date back to 1892 and, since then, different mechanisms have been proposed, based on different working principles. In this work, an attempt has been made to build an atlas of WEC devices, collecting them from the scientific and technical literature, as broadly as possible to the best of the authors’ abilities. The working principle, the wave propagation direction, and the coast proximity have been used to classify the mechanisms of the atlas that have been illustrated by means of standardized esthetics. The topological nature of each device has been also extracted by applying both the polynomial representation of its kinematic chain (KC) together with a planar representation of the corresponding graph. These representations gave rise to a further and more detailed classification of the collected WEC devices that have been gathered together in peculiar topological families. Finally, system power has been also included to complete the information related to the devices illustrated in the atlas.