CorPower Ocean announced that it has partnered with composite machinery specialist Autonational and composite tank experts CPT Tankwell to develop a commercial-scale hull in Viana do Castelo (Portugal). The customized machine was installed inside an environmentally controlled work cell that will be the future of CorPower’s composite manufacturing capabilities.
CorPower Ocean recently unveiled its next generation C4 Wave Energy Converter (WEC) at a global launch event in Stockholm, Sweden.
In the last year, process characterization work on quarter-scale models has enabled rapid iterations and continuous tuning to reach targeted quality and material properties reviewed by DNV, paving the way for commercial scale construction.
CorPower Ocean’s Portuguese base in Viana do Castelo has completed a major milestone toward its flagship HiWave-5 Project, which involves ocean deployment in Aguçadoura.
“This has been a tremendous team effort involving our specialist composite team in Portugal and Sweden with close cooperation with our local and global supply chain partners.” saidMiguel Silva, Managing Director for CorPower Ocean Portugal.“The C4 hull has been designed with a low-cost sandwich structure comprising of filament-wound composite skins for the inner and outer layer separated by a core material. This approach brings a raft of benefits including high strength, durability and impact resistance combined with light weight and buoyancy performance properties, which can withstand fatigue, slamming and impact loads. Other important features include excellent adhesion strength and chemical resistance with low water absorption.”
A world-class wave energy test rig has been used to dry-test CorPower Ocean’s PTO (Power Take Off) system in conjunction with the hull construction.
The composite hull development work cell is comprised of a fully customized filament winding machine mounted on a 14-meter platform. It includes an automated carrying system for applying fibers on a 9-meter diameter mandrel, to wind the hull layer by layer.
Tord Jonsson, Supply chain & Quality manager said:“Based on the R&D-cell in Viana do Castelo, future versions of such manufacturing cells can be easily integrated in port or final assembly facilities, amounting to ‘mobile factories’. This will enable composite hulls to be built rapidly on customer sites, with additive manufacturing dramatically reducing lead times, cost and carbon footprint by eliminating transportation of the finished product. Delivering wave farms to our customers, we will be moving these factory cells from site the site, to produce the hulls needed for a project, then move the cells over to the next customer site. The equipment will be packed and transported in three standard containers, taking only a few days to assemble once delivered to a new site. Our ‘mobile factory’ concept enables high local content in projects, and will play a key role in revitalizing local port communities and local supply chains.”
Working in partnership with several utility companies, CorPower Ocean’s first C4 WEC will be part of a larger four-system array, and one of the world’s first wave farms generating energy for the national grid.
