Design Competition 2022: Wave Energy Accumulator

The world faces the enormous challenge of moving from fossil fuels to fully sustainable sources. The Energy Transition. In addition to energy production from natural sources, energy storage is also a major challenge. It would be ideal if there was a technique that would provide a solution for both challenges at the same time, i.e. for extraction and storage. The first-year Mechanical Engineering students at TU Delft designed a Wave Energy Accumulator (GEA), in which the energy from the movement of waves is converted into rotational energy of a flywheel.

Design assignment

The challenge was to rotate a flywheel by means of a float to be designed on the waves. The student teams not only came up with a design, but also fabricated and tested it. For testing, the students had to generate the waves themselves with a simple wave generator. The design challenge was to design a float that is able to extract as much energy as possible from the wave motion. But also in a transmission that will convert the up and down movement of the float into a rotating movement of a flywheel. And a transmission to bridge the distance between the float and the flywheel. Finally, the flywheel had to be able to store the energy.

Contest

Almost 100 student teams of 6 students competed with each other on Thursday 9 June 2022 for the best design. This year the Design Competition was part of the Energy Challenge Event, in the context of the TU Delft lustrum.