• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.242-252
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• 2018

It is well known that an Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converter (OWC-WEC) is one of the most efficient wave absorber equipment. This device transforms the vertical motion of water column in the air chamber into the air flow velocity and produces electricity from the driving force of turbine as represented by the Wells turbine. Therefore, in order to obtain high electric energy, it is necessary to amplify the water surface vibration by inducing resonance of the piston mode in the water surface fluctuation in the air chamber. In this study, a new type of OWC-WEC with a seawater channel is used, and the wave deformation by the structure, water surface fluctuation in the air chamber, air outflow velocity from the nozzle and seawater flow velocity in the seawater channel are evaluated by numerical analysis in detail. The numerical analysis model uses open CFD code OLAFLOW model based on multi-phase analysis technique of Navier-Stokes solver. To validate model, numerical results and existing experimental results are compared and discussed. It is revealed within the scope of this study that the air flow velocity at nozzle increases as the Ursell number becomes larger, and the air velocity that flows out from the inside of the air chamber is larger than the velocity of incoming air into the air chamber.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.253-262
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• 2018

Oscillating Water Column (OWC) Wave Energy Converters (WEC) harness electricity through a Power-Take-Off (PTO) system from the induced-airflow by seawater oscillating inside a chamber. In general, an air chamber with a relatively small cross-sectional area is required compared to seawater chamber to obtain high-velocity air in the PTO system, and in order to simulate an accurate air flow rate in the air chamber, a three-dimensional study is required. In this study, the dynamic response of OWC-WEC that is equipped with the channel of seawater exchange for the case of irregular waves has been numerically studied. The open source CFD software, OLAFLOW for the simulation of wave dynamics to the openFOAM and FOAM-extend communities, was used to simulate the interaction between the device and irregular waves. Based on the numerical simulation results, we discussed the fluctuation characteristics of three dimensional air flow in the air-chamber, wave deformation around the structure and the seawater flow inside the channel of seawater exchange. The numerical results the maximum air flow velocity in the air-chamber increases as the Ursell value of the significant wave increases, and the velocity of airflow flowing out from the inside of air chamber to the outside is greater than the speed of flowing into the air chamber from the outside.