• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.19-27
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• 2002

The motion of a floating OWC chamber in waves is studied taking account of fluctuating air pressure in the air chamber. An atmospheric pressure drop occurs across the upper opening of the chamber which causes not only hydrodynamic but also pneumatic added mass and damping forces to the floating chamber. A velocity potential in the water due to the free surface oscillating pressure patch is added to the conventional radiation-diffraction potential problem. the potential problem inside the chamber is formulated by making use of the Green integral equation associated with the Rankine Green function wile the outer problem with the Kelvin Green function. The two integral equations are solved simultaneously by making use of a matching boundary condition at the lower opening of the chamber to the outer water region. The chamber motion in the frequency domain is calculated for various values of parameters related to the atmospheric pressure drop. The present methods can also be sued for the analysis of air-cushion vehicle motion as well as for the design of a floating OWC wave energy absorber.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.191-197
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• 2002

The motion of a floating OWC chamber in waves is studied taking account of fluctuating.air pressure in the air chamber. An atmospheric pressure drop occurs across the upper opening of the chamber which causes not only hydrodynamic but also pneumatic added mass and damping forces to the floating chamber. A velocity potential in the water due to the free surface oscillating pressure patch is added to the conventional radiation-diffraction potential problem. The potential problem inside the chamber is formulated by making use of the Green integral equation associated with the Rankine Green function while the outer problem with the Kelvin Green function. The two integral equations are solved simultaneously by making use of a matching boundary condition at the lower opening of the chamber to the outer water region. The chamber motion in the frequency domain is calculated for various values of parameters related to the atmospheric pressure drop. The present methods can also be used for the analysis of air-cushion vehicle motion as well as for the design oj a floating owe wave energy absorber.

• Journal of Korean Port Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 1996

Generally, it is pointed out that a nonlinear analysis is needed to estimate accurately the water surface fluctuation and dynamic responses of a floating structure in case of large wave reflection. In this study, a frequency-domain method is applied and newly developed to analyze the nonlinear characteristics of the air-chamber floating breakwater. The air-chamber floating breakwater in this study can control well the wave transformation, motions of the structure and its natural frequency by adjusting the air depth in the chamber. Experiments are carried out to verify the numerical results. It is appeared that the mean water level is setup in the anti-node and setdown in the node, while the nonlinearity in wave profile is larger in the node than in the anti-node. Because of vertical mooring system, the sway, especially the time-independent nonlinear component, plays predominant role in the motion. On the other hand, the time-dependent component, as well as the time-independent one to the tensile force of mooring line contributes greatly, and the time averaged value presents tensional force oriented to the onshore side due drift force.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.43-51
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• 1992

The hydrodynamic performance of a floating-type OWC (Oscillating Water Column) chamber is studied numerically and experimentally in this study. The numerical approach based on two-dimensional linear theory of floating wave absorber was attempted to design an efficient wave energy absorber, while model test was performed in a wave basin to test a performance of designed model and validate the reliability of developed numerical code. The focus of study is placed mainly on the experimental study to evaluate the principal characteristics of the designed OWC chamber in regular waves. The effects of the variation of wave height on OWC device and of air pressure inside chamber are also presented. Finally, the measured results were compared with computed ones, and it was shown that the designed chamber works with high efficiency $(\eta_H>1$ over most of wave lengths covered by present study. It is therefore concluded that the developed code is capable of being successfully employed to design OWC chambers at various ocean environments, even though there exist some minor discrepancies between measured and computed results.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.216-228
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• 2021

In the present study, the performance of a floating oscillating water column (OWC) device has been studied in regular waves. The OWC model has the shape of a hollow cylinder. The linear potential theory is assumed, and a matched eigenfunction expansion method(MEEM) is applied for solving the diffraction and radiation problems. The radiation problem involves the radiation of waves by the heaving motion of a floating OWC device and the oscillating pressure in the air chamber. The characteristics of the exciting forces, hydrodynamic forces, flow rate, air pressure in the chamber, and heave motion response are investigated with various system parameters, such as the inner radius, draft of an OWC, and turbine constant. The efficiency of a floating OWC device is estimated in connection with the extracted wave power and capture width. Specifically, the piston-mode resonance in an internal fluid region plays an important role in the performance of a floating OWC device, along with the heave motion resonance. The developed prediction tool will help determine the various design parameters affecting the performance of a floating OWC device in waves.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.513-528
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• 2013

A floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC) wave energy converter, a Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB), was simulated using a state-of-the-art, two-dimensional, fully-nonlinear Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) technique. The hydrodynamic performance of the floating OWC device was evaluated in the time domain. The acceleration potential method, with a full-updated kernel matrix calculation associated with a mode decomposition scheme, was implemented to obtain accurate estimates of the hydrodynamic force and displacement of a freely floating BBDB. The developed NWT was based on the potential theory and the boundary element method with constant panels on the boundaries. The mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) approach was employed to capture the nonlinear free surfaces inside the chamber that interacted with a pneumatic pressure, induced by the time-varying airflow velocity at the air duct. A special viscous damping was applied to the chamber free surface to represent the viscous energy loss due to the BBDB's shape and motions. The viscous damping coefficient was properly selected using a comparison of the experimental data. The calculated surface elevation, inside and outside the chamber, with a tuned viscous damping correlated reasonably well with the experimental data for various incident wave conditions. The conservation of the total wave energy in the computational domain was confirmed over the entire range of wave frequencies.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.281-290
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• 2012

Hydrodynamic analysis of a surface-piercing body with an open chamber was performed with incident regular waves and forced-heaving body motions. The floating body was simulated in the time domain using a 2D fully nonlinear numerical wave tank (NWT) technique based on potential theory. This paper focuses on the hydrodynamic behavior of the free surfaces inside the chamber for various input conditions, including a two-input system: both incident wave profiles and forced body velocities were implemented in order to calculate the maximum surface elevations for the respective inputs and evaluate their interactions. An appropriate equivalent linear or quadratic viscous damping coefficient, which was selected from experimental data, was employed on the free surface boundary inside the chamber to account for the viscous energy loss on the system. Then a comprehensive parametric study was performed to investigate the nonlinear behavior of the wave-body interaction.

• Journal of Korean Port Research
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 1994

Experimental study is carried out to verify the advantages of an air chamber structure in controlling the wave transformation and its dynamic responses. The open, cross and vertical mooring systems are employed in experiments to investigate the variations of wave transmission ratio, natural period of the structures and tensile force acting on the mooring line according to the change of the initial air depth inside the air chamber structure. Experimental results show that the air chamber floating structure expresses the smaller wave transmission ratio and tensile force acting on the mooring line than general one without air chamber, expecially in the long period region of incident wave. Therefore, it is concluded that the air chamber structure suggested in this study can play good roles as a wave controlling castal structure, and a substitute structure of a general floating structure.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.373-376
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• 2002

The drift force acting on a floating OWC chamber in waves is studied taking account of fluctuating air pressure in the air chamber. A velocity potential in the water due to the free surface oscillating pressure patch is added to the conventional radiation-diffraction potential problem. The potential problem inside the chamber is formulated by making use of the Green integral equation associated with the Rankine Green function while the outer problem with the Kelvin Green function. The drift forces as well as the chamber motions are calculated taking account of the air pressure in the chamber.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.53-58
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• 2012

An experimental study on the hydrodynamic performance of a backward bent duct buoy (BBDB) was performed in a 2D wave tank. The BBDB is one of the promising oscillating water column (OWC) types of floating wave energy converters. Two different corner-shaped BBDBs (sharp-corner and round-corner) were used to measure the maximum chamber surface elevations and body motions for various incident wave conditions, and their hydrodynamic characteristics were compared. In order to investigate the effect of the pneumatic pressure inside the chamber, the heave and pitch angle interacted with elevations were compared for both open chamber and partially open chamber BBDBs. From the comparison study, the deviation in the chamber surface elevations between the two shapes of BBDBs was found to be significant near the resonance period, which may be explained by viscous energy loss. It was also found that the pneumatic pressure noticeably affected the chamber surface elevation and body motions.