Wave power extraction from multiple oscillating water columns along a straight coast

Siming Zheng*, Alessandro Antonini, Yongliang Zhang, Deborah Greaves, Jon Miles, Gregorio Iglesias

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

96 Citations (Scopus)
38 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The integration of oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converters into a coastal structure (breakwater, jetty, pier, etc.) or, more generally, their installation along the coast is an effective way to increase the accessibility of wave power exploitation. In this paper, a theoretical model is developed based on the linear potential flow theory and eigenfunction matching method to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance of an array of OWCs installed along a vertical straight coast. The chamber of each OWC consists of a hollow vertical circular cylinder, which is half embedded in the wall. The OWC chambers in the theoretical model may have different sizes, i.e. different values of the radius, wall thickness and submergence. At the top of each chamber, a Wells turbine is installed to extract power. The effects of the Wells turbine together with the air compressibility are taken into account as a linear power take-off system. The hydrodynamic and wave power extraction performance of the multiple coast-integrated OWCs is compared with that of a single offshore/coast-integrated OWC and of multiple offshore OWCs. More specifically, we analyse the role of the incident wave direction, chamber size (i.e. radius, wall thickness and submergence), spacing between OWCs and number of OWCs by means of the present theoretical model. It is shown that wave power extraction from the coast-integrated OWCs for a certain range of wave conditions can be significantly enhanced due to both the constructive array effect and the constructive coast effect.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)445-480
Number of pages36
JournalJournal of Fluid Mechanics
Volume878
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Bibliographical note

Accepted Author Manuscript

Keywords

  • surface gravity waves
  • wave scattering
  • wave-structure interactions

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