PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF A FLOATING COAXIAL DUCTED OWC WAVE ENERGY CONVERTER FOR OCEANOGRAPHIC PURPOSES

This paper presents a numerical study on a floating coaxial ducted OWC wave energy converter equipped with a biradial air turbine to meet the requirements of an oceanographic sensor-buoy. The study used representative sea states of the Monterey Bay, California, USA. The geometry of the coaxial ducted OWC was hydrodynamically optimized using a frequency domain approach considering a linear air turbine. Afterwards, a time domain analysis was carried out for the system equipped with a biradial turbine. The turbine rotor diameter and the optimum generator’s control curves were determined, based on results for representative sea states. Results show that mean power output fulfills the requirement for oceanographic applications (300–500W) using a turbine rotor diameter of 0.25 m. Furthermore, the system’s performance is strongly influenced by the inertia of the turbine and the generator rated power. These results confirmed the suitability of using the coaxial ducted OWC as a self-sustainable oceanographic sensor-buoy.Copyright © 2015 by ASME

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