Numerical investigation of front-wall inclination effects on the hydrodynamic performance of a fixed oscillation water column wave energy converter

Abstract

One of the main geometrical parameters of the fixed oscillating water column wave energy converters is the inclination angle of front wall. In this study, the effects of this parameter on the hydrodynamic performance of an oscillating water column is investigated using a fully nonlinear two-dimensional numerical wave tank, which is developed using the Ansys Fluent 15.0 commercial software. The accuracy of the developed wave tank is first examined by simulating an oscillating water column, having a front wall normal to the water-free surface, subjected to linear, small amplitude incident waves. The resultant absorption efficiencies are compared with available analytical data in the literature, where a good agreement was observed. Next, the simulations are performed for strongly nonlinear waves, up to the wave steepness of 0.069 (H/L = 0.069), where H is the wave height and L is the wave length. Results show that the absorption efficiency of the oscillating water column decreases considerably as the wave height increases. Moreover, the maximum wave energy absorption efficiency for the highly nonlinear waves occurs at a pneumatic damping coefficient lower than that of the linear theory. Then, the absorption efficiency of the oscillating water column is determined for eight various front wall configurations at various incident wave periods. Results show that, the front walls that are slightly bent towards the inner region of the oscillating water column chamber are more efficient at some wave periods in comparison with the cases studied in this paper.