Kraft och Deformationsmätningar på Snap Load gummi

Sammanfattning: The power consumption has grown rapidlyin the last decade. Fossil fuels and theneed for alternative energy sources aregreat. Ocean waves are a renewable andsustainable source of energy that hasbeen relatively untapped. At UppsalaUniversity research and development havebeen done for several years. Severaltypes of wave energy converters (WEC)have been created. The project facesmany challenges, but as always itultimately boils down to cost versusefficiency and energy conversion. Oneway to reduce production costs is toreduce the maximum forces a WEC isaffected by. In theory, this can be doneby something called a snap load, but ithas not been tested yet. A snap load ismainly composed of an EPDM (EthylenePropylene Diene Monomer) rubber bodywhich is deformed when the forces on itbecomes sufficiently large. One bigquestion is whether the rubber body canbe deformed quickly enough. In thisthesis a measurement system isconstructed where the forces anddeformation of the so-called snap loadcould be measured and logged in realtime. Pressure tests on EPDM rubber hasbeen carried out and the results areanalyzed and compared to simulatedresults.The results of the pressure tests showthat the rubber can be too slow for theintended function, but this may be dueto confounding factors that arediscussed in the final part of thiswork. Suggested additional pressuretests have been developed and discussedin future work. The measurement systemwas never tested on a real snap load dueto the fact that WEC that it was meantfor was not launched within the timespan of this work, however, proposals onhow it could be implemented in a snapload has been developed.