ll

The Circular Sea Clam Wave Energy Converter

N.W. BELLAMY
Coventry Polytechnic and
Sea Energy Associates Limited
Coventry, England

Summary
The SEA Clam Wave Energy Generator has been developed to a
prototype design suitable for supplying electricity to island
communities and coastal communities. It consists of a 120 m
long floating spine supporting six air bags breathing through
self-rectifying Wells turbines into a common air duct. An
alternative configuration of the SEA Clam has been model tested
at Loch Ness and has achieved a dramatic improvement in
efficiency. This paper describes the structural configuration
of the Circular SEA Clam and explains the features which led to
a breakthrough in performance. Predictions are made of the cost
of power produced by a 60 m diameter full scale unit deployed in
the North Atlantic.

Introduction
After eight years of research and development the current design
of the SEA Clam wave energy device has reached a stage where
further improvements would be difficult to achieve. The large
10 MW unit designed for a 2 GW scheme off the Hebrides was
declared in 1982 to be the leading wave energy device arising
out of the UK national wave energy programme and having the most
potential for further development. Recent development has been
towards smaller units aimed at the world wide market of
supplying electrical power for small islands and coastal
communities. Detailed design has now been completed for a 1 MW
rated prototype for testing off the UK Atlantic coast.
Unfortunately, with the current energy climate it is unlikely
that a prototype SEA Clam will be built when the predicted cost
of power generated is around V^jp/kWh.

Sea Energy Associates Limited and Coventry (Lanchester)

Polytechnic have been involved in the UK national wave energy
 71

wave absorbing face.

The design of the 1 MW SEA Clam, illustrated in Figure 1,

utilises the displacement of air to extract energy from sea
waves. Flexible air bags attached to the face of a floating
spine breathe in response to wave forces. This causes air to be
forced through self-rectifying turbines in and out of the hollow
spine, allowing interchange of air between Clam bags. The
randomness of sea wave patterns allows phased operation of the
Clam elements enabling the spine to act as a stable reference
body. For small scale wave energy deployment 1 MW units would
feature six Clam elements on a 120 m long spine whereas larger
10 MW units, 290 m long, would be appropriate for 2 GW schemes.

Pig.l. Artists Impression of a Pig.2. Cutaway View Showing

1 MW SEA Clam Spine, Air Bp.g and
Turbo-Generator

Figure 2 shows a cutaway section of the post-tensioned concrete

spine with a flexible bag and its associated turbo-generator
module. The air exchange between bag and spine is through
ducting attached to one corner of the bag and the top of the
spine. The turbo-generator module is contained in the top of
the spine and can be sealed off by a butterfly valve in the
ducting in the event of failure of the bag. The air turbines
are of the self-rectifying "Wells" design with a single stage
6-bladed rotor directly coupled to an induction generator or
alternator. The mooring is a self-aligning single point system
 73
3. The closed circuit air system of the SEA Clam has a finite
air volume which impedes the common mode operation of the
air bags. Any component of a wave which is parallel to the
spine cannot be absorbed because the air has nowhere to go.
The partial solution to the problem has been to align the
spine at about 45 to the principal wave direction which
gives a compromise between improving wave phase distribution
and the loss of capture width. An alternative solution o^
providing a compensator to enable the air bags to
effectively breathe to atmosphere has run into engineering
problems.

These three fundamental limitations have impeded the further

development of the SEA Clam. What is required is a new
configuration of the device having efficient air bags of high
capacity without incurring instability problems. The Circular
SEA Clam appears to satisfy these requirements.

The Circular SEA Clam

By re-structuring the components, spine, air bag and
turbo-generator modules, an alternative configuration of the SEA
Clam can be evolved. The circular spine structure shown in
Figure 3 is in the form of a rigid annulus 4 m in diameter,
comprising of 12 identical sections. The separate sections of
the model spine are held together by one compression joint and
two tension links arranged in such a manner as to facilitate the
measurement of wave-induced surge and heave bending in the
ring. A continuous air duct around the inner top surface of the
circular structure provides the common air connection between
the 12 Clam elements. Each section has its own sealed buoyancy
tanks for good sea-keeping and is fitted with membrane-type air
bags (Figure 4) breathing through rotating vane air dampers
(Figure 5) having the same characteristics as a Wells turbine.
To activate the device the air system is pressurised to inflate
the bags to a mean displacement in still water and during
operation the air bags interchange air through the air dampers
dissipating power in response to phased random waves.
74

Pig. 3. Circular SEA Clam Model Pig. 4. Profile of Membrane Bag

Ready for Launching

The key features of the Circular SEA Clam are:-

1. The circular frame of reference provides excellent stability

due to its wave bridging properties in both the wave and
crest directions. Pitch and roll motions are also minimised
which helps to stabilise bag operation. A floating circular
configuration has inherent stability which does not depend
on the properties of section such as the centres of gravity
and buoyancy.
2. The rigid annulus is well known for its inherent structural
strength. In this application the heave, surge and
torsional moments are roughly uniformly applied around the
spine and hence the structural strength is efficiently used.
3. The stability of the structure can be enhanced by making its
diameter about half a wavelength of the predominant waves.
This has the effect of making the device a resonant absorber
at the chosen wavelength and hence extending its bandwidth.
4. The modular structure of post-tensioned concrete sections or
fabricated steel units is amenable to low cost production
techniques and eases transportation problems.
5. The vertically inclined flexible membrane bag is considered
to be the most ideal and efficient transformer of wave to
air power discovered to date. Both experimental work and
hydrodynamic analysis confirm this view. The properties of
 75

an inclined bag are such that the controllable spring rate

can be chosen to resonant with the hydrodynamic added mass
to give a relatively low Q response. This results in a very
efficient and nearly flat frequency response of the wave to
air energy transfer provided the air turbine acts as a
linear matched load. The Wells turbine running at constant
speed is an ideal load for this system.
6. The circular spine with its stable hydrostatic
characteristic can be designed to just compensate for the
unstable buoyancy of the air system associated with low
spring rate air bags. The resulting buoyancy forces on the
nearly unstable combined bag-spine system are, therefore,
reduced and hence the disturbance of the frame of reference
by the buoyancy component of the waves is minimised. The
corresponding effect of direct wave forces on the frame of
reference is unclear at this time.
7. Inflation of the air bags on the pitch-stable circular spine
raises the whole structure vertically rather than increasing
the pitch angle as in the straight spine. Therefore, bag
displacement is a function of water line area rather than
restoring moment. This important difference in the bag
inflation mechanism leads to a high ratio of air bag
capacity to total device displacement which should improve
performance and reduce costs.
8. The circular configuration of the device can extract energy
from all components of a wave whatever angle they impinge on
the device. Common mode waves cannot occur as with a
straight spine and hence the air has always somewhere to go
in spite of the closed circuit finite volume air system.
9. A separate 'power' air system from the 'buoyancy' air system
is used which allows the structure to be partitioned for
good sea keeping. Buoyancy air is the term used to describe
the air which is only to keep the structure afloat and power
air describes the air used to transmit power from bag to
turbine.
10. It is essential for a wave energy device to be closed down
irrespective of wave conditions for such reasons as
operational requirements, maintenance, failure of the device
76
or transmission system, or the lack of consumer demand.
Complete "deflation of the air bags puts the Circular SEA
Clam into a fail-safe mode where the flexible membrane bags
are held inactive and under partial tension on the profiled
spine surface. Inflation of the air system will restore
power capacity progressively.
11. Being omni-directional, the energy capture is independent of
device alignment and hence unaffected by currents and
mooring resonances. The device is efficient in dealing with
multi-directional seas.
12. Arguments within the wave energy community as to the
relative merits of terminators, attenuators and point
absorbers have continued for many years. This device can be
classified as all three.

The provisional specification of a full scale Circular SEA Clam

design for small scale applications in North Atlantic sea state:
would be:

Spine diameter 60 m
Spine depth 7 m
No. of sections and air bags 12
No. of turbines 8
Displacement 4000 tonnes
Capture air power (annual average) 1200 kW
Turbo-generator efficiency 65%
Transmission efficiency 95%
Availability 80%
Power landed (annual average) 593 kw
Annual energy output 5.2 GWh

Performance of the Circular SEA Clam

The capture efficiency of the Circular SEA Clam has been
determined experimentally by testing a fully instrumented l/15t
scale model in Loch Ness (Figure 6). The model was fabricated
from steel sheet and fitted with corded latex membrane air
bags. Each section was numbered clockwise from 1 to 12 with t
single point mooring attached between 12 and 1 o'clock.

Measurements were made of the pressure d"rop across each

calibrated air damper during 6 minute test periods in order to
compute the air power dissipated for each sea state.
Pig.5. Rotating Vane Air Pig.6. Circular SEA Clam Tests
Dampers on Loch Ness

Structurally bending moments and mooring forces were also

recorded, but these will be reported in a later paper. Sea
states were computed from the output of capacitance type wave
gauge mounted on a mast near to the test area.

Two parameters were varied during the tests in order to seek

optimum performance. First, the volume of air in the system was
varied which, in effect, varied the mean operating profile of
the air bags and hence their mean spring rate. Secondly, the
speed of the rotating vane dampers was varied between 4000 and
10000 rev/min to give damping factors of 3636 to 9090 Nsm~5 for
the linear pressure-flow characteristics. The model was tested
in a range of sea states up to a significant wave height, 11$,
of 0.5 m and energy periods, Tg, of 3 s. All results were
processed by on-line computer and scaled to full scale.

The results of efficiency against energy period for the Circular

SEA Clam model are plotted in Figure 7. The curve through the
experimental points is the mean result of the 6 minute records
taken with various air volumes and damping factors and
represents an improvement by a factor of 4 over the efficiency
of the straight 120 m long SEA Clam. When displacement of the
devices is taken into account, this improvement in efficiency is
equivalent to an improvement in power to weight ratio of 3 which
 100 2.5

80 3 Air Power
Circular SEA Clam
2.0

60 1.5
Efficiency
60m diameter
Circular SE Clam 1.0

0.5

Energy Period - T (s)

Fig.7. Scaled Air Power Results for 60 m Diameter Circular

SEA Clam

should be reflected in the cost of power produced. Also shown

on the graph is the air power curve for the Circular SEA Clam
which has been derived from the efficiency curve.

Figure 8 shows samples of the distribution of air power

dissipated by each damper numbered around the clock. As would
be expected in a locally wind generated uni-directional sea like
Loch Ness the distribution of power is reasonably symmetrical
about the mooring line which is a check on the validity of the
results. The major proportion of the total air power, Pf, is
generated in the 8 front air bags and suggests the power
captured by the 4 rear bags is not worth having.

Conclusions
As a result of investigating the hydrodynamic and structural
limitations of the SEA Clam, a new device configuration has been
tested which has produced a remarkable improvement in
efficiency. After a series of model tests of the Circular SEA
 /9

500
H =7.3m
g 400 H =4.7m
*. T=8.4s
o P =2.2MW
a
300
ft H =2.9m
H
m T?=6.8s
PT=1.0MW
200
<u
a,

a 100
0
6 7 89 10 11 12 1 23 45 6
Bag/Damper Position

Pig.8. Scaled Air Power Distribution Around Circular SEA Clam

Clam in Loch Ness an improvement in productivity by a factor of

3 has been confirmed for the same structural displacement. This
coupled with an improvement in the engineering features of the
device is predicted to give a significant reduction in the cost
of power generated from wave energy.

References
1. Bellamy, N.W., "An Alternative Design of the SEA Clam Wave
Energy Converter", Proc. of the ASME Fourth International
Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering Symposium, Vol 1,
Dallas, February 1985.
2. Bellamy, N.W., "The SEA Clam Wave Energy Converter", Proc.
of the ASME Third International Offshore Mechanics and
Arctic Engineering Symposium, Vol 11, New Orleans, February
1984.
3. Bellamy, N.W., "Further Development of the SEA Clam Wave
Energy Converter", the IEE Fourth International Conference
on Energy Options, London, April 1984.