MODEL EXPERIMENT AND FIELD TEST OF PW-OWC TYPE WAVE POWER EXTRACTING BREAKWATER

Many research studies on wave power conversion have been conducted in Japan over the past 30 years, but the outgrowth of these studies have yet to be put to practical use. In this study, medium-scale and large-scale hydraulic model experiments as well as prototype field test on a new oscillating water column with a projecting wall (PW-OWC) wave power extracting breakwater were carried out in order to investigate the efficiency of energy conversion. The primary energy conversion efficiency of the PW-OWC converter is about 10% larger than that of the standard OWC type used in the medium-scale experiments. The primary energy conversion efficiency of the large scale experiments is about 20-30-% smaller than that of the medium scale experiments. The secondary energy conversion efficiency ranges from 0.20 to 0.42 and becomes small when the wave period is short and the wave height is large.