The flow through the air turbine of an oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converter is reciprocating and is random and highly variable. It is not surprising that the time-averaged efficiency of the air turbine is substantially lower than that of a conventional turbine working in nearly...

The objective of this paper is to present the wave energy resource assessment having in view the construction of an OWC (oscillating water column) to be integrated into a new breakwater at the mouth of the Douro River in Porto (northern Portugal). The paper starts with the evaluation of the...

The paper presents results from model testing of a self-rectifying radial-flow air turbine, that is being developed as an alternative to the axial-flow self-rectifying turbines for applications in wave energy conversion. In the new machine, named biradial turbine, the flow into, and out of, the...

The oscillating water column (OWC) equipped with an air turbine is one of the most actively studied devices for wave energy conversion. It consists of a partially submerged hollow structure whose upper part forms an air chamber and whose immersed part is open to the action of the sea waves. The...

Although the latching control strategy has been recognized as an important mean of increasing the efficiency of one-body point-absorbing wave energy converters (WECs), its effectiveness in two-body floating point-absorbers has been questioned in some studies. The current work investigates the...

This paper presents the geometry optimization of a floating oscillating water column (OWC). The device consists of a floater pierced by a small thickness tube open at the bottom to the sea water and at the top to the OWC chamber. The dimensions of the floater and tube are optimized in order to...

The rotor blades of a mini hydraulic turbine were designed using a quasi-three-dimensional method. The meridional flow is computed by a streamline curvature method and the blade-to-blade flow by a singularity method. The rotor blade sections are the NACA 66 (MOD) with a = 0.8 meanline. The...

The paper presents a fast design method for the inlet guide vanes of low-cost mini hydraulic bulb turbines. The guide vanes are positioned between two conical surfaces with a common vertex and have constant thickness distribution, except close to the leading and the trailing edges. The...