Wave energy conversion of oscillating water column devices including air compressibility

Abstract

Wave power calculations for a wave energy conversion device connected to a drogue J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 6, 013117 (2014) This paper presents an investigation on air compressibility in the air chamber and its effects on the power conversion of oscillating water column (OWC) devices. As it is well known that for practical OWC plants, their air chambers may be large enough for accommodating significant air compressibility, the "spring effect," an effect that is frequently and simply regarded to store and release energy during the reciprocating process of a wave cycle. Its insight effects on the device's performance and power conversion, however, have not been studied in detail. This research will investigate the phenomena with a special focus on the effects of air compressibility on wave energy conversion. Air compressibility itself is a complicated nonlinear process in nature, but it can be linearised for numerical simulations under certain assumptions for frequency domain analysis. In this research work, air compressibility in the OWC devices is first linearised and further coupled with the hydrodynamics of the OWC. It is able to show mathematically that in frequency-domain, air compressibility can increase the spring coefficients of both the water body motion and the device motion (if it is a floating device), and enhance the coupling effects between the water body and the structure. Corresponding to these changes, the OWC performance, the capture power, and the optimised Power Take-off (PTO) damping coefficient in the wave energy conversion can be all modified due to air compressibility. To validate the frequency-domain results and understand the problems better, the more accurate timedomain simulations with fewer assumptions have been used for comparison. It is shown that air compressibility may significantly change the dynamic responses and the capacity of converting wave energy of the OWC devices if the air chamber is very large. Published by AIP Publishing. [http://dx

Floating Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converters: A Review of Developments

“…The comparisons showed that although slight differences were attained for the water surface elevation inside the chamber, a 30% relative error was experienced in the airflow velocity. Sheng & Lewis [65] investigated the effect of air compressibility in the chamber of an OWC on its power conversion. They concluded that the dynamic responses of the converter were strongly dependent on the air compressibility.…”

A Numerical Study on Hydrodynamic Performance of an Inclined OWC Wave Energy Converter with Nonlinear Turbine–Chamber Interaction based on 3D Potential Flow

“…Furthermore, the effect of air compressibility on the estimation accuracy of the OWC's energy conversion has been studied. The change in an air density due to the air compression and decompression is affected by the pressure, temperature and humidity inside the chamber [25][26][27][28], which leads to a reduction in pneumatic power and a phase difference of the power in the chamber and turbine [25][26][27]29]. Moreover, considering the air compressibility, the OWC's energy conversion performance may vary depending on the scale effect of the model [29,30].…”

Scale effects in physical modelling of a generalized OWC

“…The performance of the OWC systems was recently investigated by Sheng and Lewis (2016), who considered the effect of air compressibility inside the pneumatic chamber, i.e. the so called "spring effect" which allows to store and release energy during a wave cycle.…”