How can we contribute to saving our oceans and coastal areas to ensure environmental sustainability? “Science, innovation, and the exploration of the unknown…” are at the heart of the U.S. Department of Energy’s mission of “Powering the Blue Economy” – the theme of their Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC). This summer, a team of students from UMass Dartmouth’s College of Engineering and Charlton College of Business helped set the standard for renewable energy in an ocean application during the virtual competition. The inaugural event challenged 15 teams of undergraduate and graduate students representing colleges from around the globe to come up with innovative marine energy solutions to power the Blue Economy. Students put their creativity and skillsets to the test to develop marine energy solutions for next-generation technologies such as autonomous vehicles to advance ocean exploration, battery and fuel cell technology for marine transportation, desalination to serve coastal and island communities, offshore renewable energy, and alternative fuels.
The UMassD MADWEC concept is a small scale, low cost, low maintenance,and configurable solution for providing ocean power to sensors, underwater vehicles, and other local energy uses. It uses a tethered buoy to create rotation and drive a bank of generators. Shown here, the MADWEC is powering a variety of ocean sensors and satellite communications for data upload.
Students innovate ways
Blue Economy “For students majoring in mechanical engineering, this
Wave Energy Converter. Earlier efforts involved
has overlapped with their senior design capstone project.
the design and modeling of a tethered ballast system
A similar classroom experience is true for the business
to keep the WEC stable in the water column. The 2019-
school involved,” said Daniel MacDonald, professor of
20 MECC team engineering students designed a new power
Civil and Environmental Engineering, who served as team
take off for the ballast system, which is the mechanical
advisor along with Mehdi Raessi, associate professor of
component that actually captures energy and transforms
Mechanical Engineering, and Peter Karlson, adjunct
it into electricity.
professor at the Charlton College of Business.
10
In addition, a team of business students have performed
The UMass Dartmouth project builds on earlier work at
marketing research and developed a business plan and
the University focused around the creation of a small-
licensing strategy to bring the technology to the market-
scale wave energy conversion (WEC) device, known as
place. MADWEC 2.0 fills an important niche in the marine
MADWEC 2.0, which stands for Maximal Asymmetric Drag
technology sector, with the capability of providing
Summer 2020 news
