Experimental activity for a benchmarking test case of WECs in its stand alone and array configuration

Several communities are currently working on Wave Energy Converters (WECs); all of them have highlighted the need of experimental open-source benchmark test cases, they are fundamental to validate the different numerical algorithms that are used to model WECs. Outside the WeCANet community, the need for publicly available experimental data has been underlined by the ITTC specialist committee on hydrodynamics modelling of marine renewable energy devices [1]; it is an objective of the Marinet2 project, in the framework of this project some round robin experimental tests are underway and some experimental data are made available in the OES TASK 10. The wide variety of WEC devices and the shortage of available data leave space to new multi campaignstests. While the development of the WECs technology also asks for the introduction of experimental round robin tests on arrays. The wave basin n.2 at CNR-INM well suits the study of WECs in open sea. In fact, it has already been used for several experimental campaigns related to WECs [2],[3],[4]. Its dimensions (length = 220 m, breadth = 9.0 m, water depth = 3.5 m) allow for a reduced blockage effect and it can even host arrays of small scale devices.