Effect of oscillating water column chamber inclination on the performance of a Savonius rotor

Prasad, Deepak D. and Ahmed, Mohammed R. and Lee, Y.H. (2020) Effect of oscillating water column chamber inclination on the performance of a Savonius rotor. Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, 142 (4). 042002-1. ISSN 0892-7219

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Abstract

The power potential in the waves that hit all the coasts worldwide has been estimated to be of the order of 1 TW. Each wave crest transmits 10–50 kW/m of energy, which is 15–20 times higher than wind or solar energies. The availability of wave energy is 90% compared to 30% for wind and solar energies. The oscillating water column (OWC), which is the most investigated wave energy converter consists of a partially submerged hollow structure positioned either vertically or inclined. The bidirectional airflow above the water column drives a turbine. The conventional OWCs experience flow separation at the sharp corners of the chamber. To address this issue, researchers have proposed inclining the chamber at an angle with respect to the incident waves to improve the flow characteristics. In the present work, the effect of OWC inclination on rotor performance is studied using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code ansys-cfx. The results highlight that the 55 deg inclined OWC showed improved performance compared to the conventional OWC and modified OWC (optimized in a previous work). The maximum power for the inclined OWC was 13% higher than that for the rotor in the modified OWC and 28% than that in the conventional OWC at mean wave condition. The 55 deg inclined OWC recorded peak rotor power of 23.2 kW with an efficiency of 27.6% at the mean sea state. The peak power and efficiency at maximum sea state were 26.5 kW and 21.5%, respectively.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Additional Information:	Please note that this is an enhanced version of the Conference paper with the same title. New results are added to this journal article.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Wave energy; oscillating water column; Savonius rotor; computational fluid dynamics.
Subjects:	T Technology > TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > School of Engineering and Physics
Depositing User:	M. Rafiuddin Ahmed
Date Deposited:	01 May 2020 03:43
Last Modified:	01 May 2020 03:43
URI:	http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/12101

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