Abstract
The increasing international growth in the development of marine and freshwater wave and tidal energy harvesting systems has been followed by a growing requirement to understand any associated underwater impact. Radiated noise generated during operation is dependent on the device’s physical properties, the sound-propagation environment, and the device’s operational state. Physical properties may include size, distribution in the water column, and mechanics/hydrodynamics. The sound-propagation environment may be influenced by water depth, bathymetry, sediment type, and water column acoustic properties, and operational state may be influenced by tidal cycle and wave height among others This paper discusses some of the challenges for measurement of noise characteristics from these devices as well as a case study of the measurement of radiated noise from a full-scale wave energy converter.
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to E.ON, Pelamis Wave Power Ltd., the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Ed Harland (Chickerall Bioacoustics), Nicola Quick, and Gordon Hastie (Sea Mammal Research Unit [SMRU] Ltd.).
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Lepper, P.A., Robinson, S.P. (2016). Measurement of Underwater Operational Noise Emitted by Wave and Tidal Stream Energy Devices. In: Popper, A., Hawkins, A. (eds) The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life II. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 875. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_74
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2981-8_74
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