Journal
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Volume 119, Issue -, Pages 741-753Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.12.027
Keywords
Wave energy converters; Oscillating Water Column; Air compressibility; Scale effects; Numerical study; Correction factors
Funding
- CINECA award under the ISCRA initiative, through the SCALEOWC project
- Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of Florence University under the NEMO project
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This study presents an evaluation of the error induced by neglecting the effect of air compressibility in modelling Oscillating Water Column (OWC) wave energy converters. A compressible two phases CFD model in the open-source software package OpenFOAM (R) is validated and then used to simulate a fixed OWC device, detached from the sea bottom. A comparative analysis of the results obtained by simulating the device at full-scale (1:1) and at four smaller scales (1:50, 1:25, 1:10 and 1:5) is performed in order to assess the scale effects associated with air compressibility. Indeed, for the air pressure levels considered in the simulations (up to 350 Pa at model scale 1:50), the effect of neglecting the air compressibility results in an overestimation up to about 15% for the air pressure in the OWC chamber and the subsequent air volume flux, but less than 10% for the capture width ratio. This overestimation increases with increasing pressure level. Results are analysed in terms of dimensionless parameters and a new parameter, strongly related to the compressible effects, is proposed and used to provide generalized equations delivering correction factors. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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