Performance studies on an oscillating water column employing a savonius rotor

Patel, Sandeep K. and Ram, Krishnil R. and Ahmed, Mohammed R. and Lee, Y.H. (2011) Performance studies on an oscillating water column employing a savonius rotor. Science China Technological Sciences, 54 (7). pp. 1674-1679. ISSN 1674-7321

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Abstract

A new oscillating water column (OWC) design is proposed in this study to incorporate a simpler Savonius type turbine. Conventional OWC devices employ a bi-directional turbine such as a Wells or an Impulse turbine to extract energy from the air. The disadvantages of the Wells turbine include its inability to self start and stalling. The Savonius turbine is much cheaper and is an effective option at low Reynolds numbers. In the current rectangular OWC device, unlike the circular OWC, the width of entry of the capture chamber can be increased without being influenced by the diameter at the turbine section. To improve its primary capture efficiency, the front and rear walls of the OWC are inclined to minimize reflection. The Savonius rotor characteristics are studied with respect to the change in frequency of the incoming waves. The rotor rpm is sensitive to wave period and primary conversion efficiency while changes in depth only affect the rotor rpm at lower frequencies. The Savonius rotor shows promising results and can be incorporated into large scale OWC devices to reduce costs of the turbine component of the system.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	T Technology > TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > School of Engineering and Physics
Depositing User:	Ms Shalni Sanjana
Date Deposited:	21 Jun 2011 09:03
Last Modified:	17 Jul 2012 02:56
URI:	http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/4803

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