Assessment of primary energy conversions of oscillating water columns. I. Hydrodynamic analysis
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Date
2014-09-29
Authors
Sheng, Wanan
Alcorn, Raymond
Lewis, Anthony
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Institute of Physics
Published Version
Abstract
This is an investigation on the development of a numerical assessment method for the hydrodynamic performance of an oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converter. In the research work, a systematic study has been carried out on how the hydrodynamic problem can be solved and represented reliably, focusing on the phenomena of the interactions of the wave-structure and the wave-internal water surface. These phenomena are extensively examined numerically to show how the hydrodynamic parameters can be reliably obtained and used for the OWC performance assessment. In studying the dynamic system, a two-body system is used for the OWC wave energy converter. The first body is the device itself, and the second body is an imaginary “piston,” which replaces part of the water at the internal water surface in the water column. One advantage of the two-body system for an OWC wave energy converter is its physical representations, and therefore, the relevant mathematical expressions and the numerical simulation can be straightforward. That is, the main hydrodynamic parameters can be assessed using the boundary element method of the potential flow in frequency domain, and the relevant parameters are transformed directly from frequency domain to time domain for the two-body system. However, as it is shown in the research, an appropriate representation of the “imaginary” piston is very important, especially when the relevant parameters have to be transformed from frequency-domain to time domain for a further analysis. The examples given in the research have shown that the correct parameters transformed from frequency domain to time domain can be a vital factor for a successful numerical simulation.
Description
Keywords
Oscillating water column , OWC device , Wave energy converter , Wave energy production , Hydrodynamic performance , Hydrodynamics , Wave structure
Citation
Sheng, W., Alcorn, R. and Lewis, A. (2014) 'Assessment of primary energy conversions of oscillating water columns. I. Hydrodynamic analysis', Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, 6, 053113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4896850
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Copyright
© 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. The following article appeared in Sheng et al., Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, 6, 053113 (2014) and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4896850