Primary wave energy conversions of oscillating water columns

Sheng, Wanan; Alcorn, Raymond; Lewis, Anthony

Primary wave energy conversions of oscillating water columns

Files

EWTEC2013_wanan_v1.pdf(909.61 KB)

Date

2013-09

Authors

Sheng, Wanan

Alcorn, Raymond

Lewis, Anthony

Publisher

European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the numerical simulation of the primary wave energy conversion in the oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converters (WECs). The new proposed numerical approach consists of three major components: potential flow analysis for the conventional hydrodynamic parameters, such as added mass, damping coefficients, restoring force coefficients and wave excitations; the thermodynamic analysis of the air in the air chamber, which is under the assumptions of the given power take-off characteristics and an isentropic process of air flow. In the formulation, the air compressibility and its effects have been included; and a time-domain analysis by combining the linear potential flow and the thermodynamics of the air flow in the chamber, in which the hydrodynamics and thermodynamics/aerodynamics have been coupled together by the force generated by the pressurised and de-pressurised air in the air chamber, which in turn has effects on the motions of the structure and the internal water surface. As an example, the new developed approach has been applied to a fixed OWC device. The comparisons of the measured data and the simulation results show the new method is very capable of predicting the performance of the OWC devices.

Keywords

Wave energy converter , Oscillating water column , Air compressibility , Power take-off

Citation

Sheng, W., Alcorn, R. and Lewis, A. (2013) 'Primary wave energy conversions of oscillating water columns', Proceedings of 10th European wave and tidal energy conference, 2-5 September, Aalborg University, Denmark.