• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.291-299
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• 2002

This paper characterizes hi-directionally oscillating flow in planar microdiffusers in order to evaluate the frequency-dependent flow rectification performance of the microdiffusers. In the theoretical study, we analyze a hi-directionally oscillating flow in the planar microdiffuser. In the experimental study, we fabricate two different microdiffuser prototypes, having different neck widths of 100 ㎛ (D100) and 300 ㎛(D300), respectively. The experimental net flow rates are measured as 116.6 $\mu$ι/min. and 344.4 $\mu$ι/min. for D100 and D300, respectively. The experimental flow rate of D300 decreases at the oscillating flow frequencies higher than 90Hz, at which the net boundary layer thickness is reduced to the microdiffuser neck width. It is experimentally verified that the flow rectification performance and the net flow rate of the microdiffusers tend to decrease when the boundary layer thickness is smaller than the diffuser neck width.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2010

The water elevation inside the air chamber and bi-directional air flow in the duct of Oscillating Water Column wave energy converter is one of the most important factors to evaluate the operating performance. The numerical wave tank based on the commercial software Fluent 6.2 in the present paper is employed to generate the incident waves. The numerical wave tank consists of the continuity equations, the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and the two-phase VOF function. The oscillating amplitude of water column in the chamber and bi-directional air flow in the duct installed on the top of the chamber are calculated, and compared with experimental data to verify the validation of the present NWT. The nozzle effects of the chamber-duct system on the relative amplitudes of the inner free water surface and air flow rate in the duct are investigated.