3D NUMERICAL ANALYSIS ABOUT THE SHAPE INFLUENCE OF THE HYDRO-PNEUMATIC CHAMBER IN AN OSCILLATING WATER COLUMN (OWC)

Abstract

The oceans represent one of the major energy natural resources, which potentially can be used to supply the World energy demand. In the last decades some devices to convert the wave ocean energy into electrical energy have been studied. In this work the operating principle of an Oscillating Water Column (OWC) converter was analyzed with a transient 3D numerical methodology, using the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model. The incident waves on the OWC hydro- pneumatic chamber cause an oscillation of the water column inside the chamber producing an alternate air flow through the chimney. The air drives a turbine that is coupled to an electric generator. The aim of this work was to investigate the shape influence of the hydro-pneumatic chamber geometry in the air flow. For this, six cases were studied in laboratory scale and the results showed that the variation of the OWC chamber shape can improve 12.4% the amount of mass air flow.