Numerical Simulation of a Dual-Chamber Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converter

Dezhi Ning, Rongquan Wang and Chongwei Zhang
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Dezhi Ning: State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Rongquan Wang: State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Chongwei Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: The performance of a dual-chamber Oscillating Water Column (OWC) Wave Energy Converter (WEC) is considered in the present study. The device has two sub-chambers with a shared orifice. A two-dimensional (2D) fully nonlinear numerical wave flume based on the potential-flow theory and the time-domain higher-order boundary element method (HOBEM) is applied for the simulation. The incident waves are generated by using the immerged sources and the air-fluid coupling influence is considered with a simplified pneumatic model. In the present study, the variation of the surface elevation and the water column volume in the two sub-chambers are investigated. The effects of the chamber geometry (i.e., the draft and breadth of two chambers) on the surface elevation and the air pressure in the chamber are investigated, respectively. It is demonstrated that the surface elevations in the two sub-chambers are strongly dependent on the wave conditions. The larger the wavelength, the more synchronous motion of the two water columns in the two sub-chambers, thus, the lager the variation of the water column volume.

Keywords: wave energy converter; OWC; dual-chamber; HOBEM; hydrodynamic performance; fully nonlinear (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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