Investigation on integrated system of chamber and turbine for OWC wave energy convertor

Abstract

Oscillating water column (OWC) is one of the most widely used wave energy converting systems all over the world. The operating performance is influenced by the efficiencies of the two converting stages in the OWC chamber turbine integrated system. A study on the effects of the pressure drop induced by the air turbine was carried out . The orifice devices could simulate the pressure drop effects induced by the impulse turbine. The numerical model using the orifice and porous media module could be embedded in the numerical wave tank to generate the pressure drop of the turbine. The numerical wave tank embedded with the orifice module could be used to simulate the orifice effects on the OWC chamber operation. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 2009 International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference (Osaka, Japan 6/21-26/2009).