Numerical analysis of a projecting wall type oscillating water column(PW-OWC)wave energy converter in regular waves

Oscillating water column(OWC)based wave energy absorption devices are classic which have been widely used for harnessing ocean wave energy.This paper presents a numerical study on a projecting wall(PW)type OWC wave energy converter in regular waves.The computational fluid dynamics(CFD)modelling of a stationary floating PW-OWC model in a three-dimensional wave flume is achieved by the software Flow-3D.Numerical analyses are carried out based on CFD simulations and the linear potential flow solutions with modifications to account for turbine-induced damping.The present numerical solutions are validated against our previous experimental data.It is found that both the CFD and modified linear potential flow predictions are in reasonably good agreements with the experimental data in the first order results of OWC and air pressure responses.When the nonlinear responses are included in the result,the modified linear potential flow solution is found to slightly under-estimate the wave energy conversion performance at long wavelengths.Regarding the airflows above and below the chamber orifice,the CFD results suggest that they are almost unidirectional,oscillating in not only the base frequency but also subharmonic and ultraharmonic frequencies.The evolution of the OWC responses during an entire period and the phase analysis based on CFD simulations are presented.The phase results provide the crucial evidence to the reasonability of the physics-based modification of the potential flow model in modelling of OWCs.The present results and analysis are expected to be beneficial to the understanding on the physical mechanism of OWCs and the design of phase control strategies.

Theoretical and numerical investigations of wave resonance between two floating bodies in close proximity

A simple theoretical dynamic model with a linearized damping coefficient is proposed for the gap resonance problem, as often referred to as the piston mode wave motion in a narrow gap formed by floating bodies. The relationship among the resonant response amplitude and frequency, the reflection and transmission coefficients, the gap width, and the damping coefficient is obtained. A quantitative link between the damping coefficient of the theoretical dynamic model（ε） and that devised for the modified potential flow model（μ_p） is established, namely, μ_p=3πεω_n/8 （where ω_n is the natural frequency）. This link clarifies the physical meaning of the damping term introduced into the modified potential flow model. A new explicit approach to determine the damping coefficient for the modified potential model is proposed, without resorting to numerically tuning the damping coefficient by trial and error tests. The effects of the body breadth ratio on the characteristics of the gap resonance are numerically investigated by using both the modified potential flow model and the viscous RNG turbulent model. It is found that the body breadth ratio has a significant nonlinear influence on the resonant wave amplitude and the resonant frequency. With the modified potential flow model with the explicit damping coefficient, reasonable predictions are made in good agreement with the numerical solutions of the viscous fluid model.