• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.33-38
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• 2012

The aim of this experimental study was to analyze the effect of the shape parameters and chamber pressure of a land-based oscillating water column (OWC) in regular incident waves. The magnitude of the free surface elevations inside the chamber was measured in a two-dimensional wave tank for various chamber skirt drafts and bottom slope angles. The surface elevations were also measured under both open chamber and partially open chamber conditions. From these measurements, the optimum shape of the OWC device could be predicted for the maximum wave energy conversion efficiency. It was found that the resonance frequency of the OWC system associated with incident waves moved toward the long wave region with increments of the draft of the chamber skirt and bottom slope. The behavior of the free surface elevation inside the chamber was also found to be dependent on the chamber pressure.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.729-735
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• 2012

The primary wave energy conversion by a three-dimensional bottom-mounted oscillating water column (OWC) wave power device in regular waves has been studied. The linear potential boundary value problem has been solved following the boundary matching method. The optimum shape parameters such as the chamber length and the depth of the front skirt of the OWC chamber obtained through two-dimensional numerical tests in the frequency domain have been applied in the design of the present OWC chamber. Time-mean wave power converted by the OWC device and the time-mean second-order wave forces on the OWC chamber structure have been presented for different wave incidence angles in the frequency-domain. It has been shown that the peak period of $P_m$ for the optimum damping parameter coincides with the peak period of the time.mean wave drift force when ${\gamma}=0$.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.43-51
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• 1992

The hydrodynamic performance of a floating-type OWC (Oscillating Water Column) chamber is studied numerically and experimentally in this study. The numerical approach based on two-dimensional linear theory of floating wave absorber was attempted to design an efficient wave energy absorber, while model test was performed in a wave basin to test a performance of designed model and validate the reliability of developed numerical code. The focus of study is placed mainly on the experimental study to evaluate the principal characteristics of the designed OWC chamber in regular waves. The effects of the variation of wave height on OWC device and of air pressure inside chamber are also presented. Finally, the measured results were compared with computed ones, and it was shown that the designed chamber works with high efficiency $(\eta_H>1$ over most of wave lengths covered by present study. It is therefore concluded that the developed code is capable of being successfully employed to design OWC chambers at various ocean environments, even though there exist some minor discrepancies between measured and computed results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.335-341
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• 2014

Physical experiments were carried out to measure the wave force on the vertical walls of perforated breakwater considering several phases of a wave acting on the breakwater. The maximum horizontal wave force acting on each vertical wall was compared between single and double chamber caisson breakwater. The experimental data in this study showed that the total horizontal wave force for double chamber caisson was 9.6% smaller on average than that for single chamber caisson when the total chamber width was the same for both caissons. Such reduction of the wave force is due to the dissipation of wave energy at the porous middle wall, which is located between the porous front wall and non-porous rear wall.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.53-58
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• 2012

An experimental study on the hydrodynamic performance of a backward bent duct buoy (BBDB) was performed in a 2D wave tank. The BBDB is one of the promising oscillating water column (OWC) types of floating wave energy converters. Two different corner-shaped BBDBs (sharp-corner and round-corner) were used to measure the maximum chamber surface elevations and body motions for various incident wave conditions, and their hydrodynamic characteristics were compared. In order to investigate the effect of the pneumatic pressure inside the chamber, the heave and pitch angle interacted with elevations were compared for both open chamber and partially open chamber BBDBs. From the comparison study, the deviation in the chamber surface elevations between the two shapes of BBDBs was found to be significant near the resonance period, which may be explained by viscous energy loss. It was also found that the pneumatic pressure noticeably affected the chamber surface elevation and body motions.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.513-528
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• 2013

A floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC) wave energy converter, a Backward Bent Duct Buoy (BBDB), was simulated using a state-of-the-art, two-dimensional, fully-nonlinear Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) technique. The hydrodynamic performance of the floating OWC device was evaluated in the time domain. The acceleration potential method, with a full-updated kernel matrix calculation associated with a mode decomposition scheme, was implemented to obtain accurate estimates of the hydrodynamic force and displacement of a freely floating BBDB. The developed NWT was based on the potential theory and the boundary element method with constant panels on the boundaries. The mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) approach was employed to capture the nonlinear free surfaces inside the chamber that interacted with a pneumatic pressure, induced by the time-varying airflow velocity at the air duct. A special viscous damping was applied to the chamber free surface to represent the viscous energy loss due to the BBDB's shape and motions. The viscous damping coefficient was properly selected using a comparison of the experimental data. The calculated surface elevation, inside and outside the chamber, with a tuned viscous damping correlated reasonably well with the experimental data for various incident wave conditions. The conservation of the total wave energy in the computational domain was confirmed over the entire range of wave frequencies.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.465-468
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• 2006

The wave power absorbing performance of a bottom-mounted oscillating water column (OWC) chamber structure is studied. The potential problem inside the chamber is solved by making use of the Green integral equation associated with the Rankine Green function while the outer problem with the Kelvin Green function taking account of fluctuating air pressure in the air chamber. The absorbed wave power, wave elevation inside the chamber, reflection coefficient and wave loads are calculated for various values of a parameter related to the fluctuating air pressure. The present methods can also be used for the design of a OWC breakwater which can absorb and reflect the incoming wave energy at the same time.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.263-272
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• 2001

Recently, some attempts to construct slit caisson-type breakwaters are made in Korea. Since slit caisson-type breakwaters are suitable for relatively deep sea areas, a lot of theoretical and experimental researches have been performed. In this study, the reflection characteristics of vertical slit caisson breakwaters are investigated based on the measured data in two-dimensional hydraulic model tests with irregular waves. The experiments were conducted for various cases; variation of porosity of perforated-wall, width of wave chamber, number of slits for single-and double-chamber, respectively. It is found that in the case when the wave steepness (H/L$_{s}$ ) is small, the reflection coefficients are large. The existing researches have shown that the wave reflection is minimized when the nondimensional width of wave chamber B/L is about 0.2~0.25 for the regular waves. However, for the irregular waves the reflection is lowest when $B/L_2$, is 0.13~0.15. For a same porosity condition, the wave dissipation is stronger as the width of s1it is larger. The double-chamber caisson is superior to single- chamber caisson in the wave dissipating effects.

• Journal of Korean Port Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 1996

Generally, it is pointed out that a nonlinear analysis is needed to estimate accurately the water surface fluctuation and dynamic responses of a floating structure in case of large wave reflection. In this study, a frequency-domain method is applied and newly developed to analyze the nonlinear characteristics of the air-chamber floating breakwater. The air-chamber floating breakwater in this study can control well the wave transformation, motions of the structure and its natural frequency by adjusting the air depth in the chamber. Experiments are carried out to verify the numerical results. It is appeared that the mean water level is setup in the anti-node and setdown in the node, while the nonlinearity in wave profile is larger in the node than in the anti-node. Because of vertical mooring system, the sway, especially the time-independent nonlinear component, plays predominant role in the motion. On the other hand, the time-dependent component, as well as the time-independent one to the tensile force of mooring line contributes greatly, and the time averaged value presents tensional force oriented to the onshore side due drift force.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.182-188
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• 2014

In an oscillating water column (OWC)-type wave energy conversion system, the performance of the OWC chamber depends on the chamber shape, as well as the incident wave direction and pressure drop produced by the turbine. Although the previous studies on OWC chambers have focused on wave absorbing performance in ideal operating conditions, incident waves do not always arrive normally to the OWC chamber in real sea conditions, especially in fixed devices. The present study deals with experiments and numerical calculations to investigate the effects of wave direction on the performance of the OWC chamber. The experiments were carried out in a three-dimensional wave basin for five different wave directions, including the effect of turbine using the corresponding orifice. The wave elevation inside the chamber was measured at the center point under various incident wave conditions. The numerical study was conducted by using a numerical wave tank-based volume-of-fluid model to compare the results with experimental data and to reveal the detailed flows around the chamber.