Study on Flow Characteristics in an Augmentation Channel of a Direct Drive Turbine for Wave Energy Conversion Using CFD

Recent developments such as concern over global warming, depletion of fossil fuels and increase in energy demands by the increasing world population has eventually lead to mass production of electricity using renewable sources. Apart from wind and solar, ocean holds tremendous amount of untapped energy in forms such as geothermal vents, tides and waves. The current study looks at generating power using waves and the focus is on the primary energy conversion (first stage conversion) of incoming waves for different models. Observation of flow characteristics and the velocity in the augmentation channel as well as the front guide nozzle are presented in the paper. A numerical wave tank was used to simulate the waves and after obtaining the desired wave properties; the augmentation channel plus the front guide nozzle and rear chamber were integrated to the numerical wave tank. The waves in the numerical wave tank were generated by a piston type wave maker which was located at the wave tank inlet. The inlet which was modeled as a plate wall moved sinusoidally with the general function, x=asin$\omega$t The augmentation channel consisted of a front nozzle, rear nozzle and an internal fluid region representing the turbine housing. The analysis was performed using the commercial CFD code ANSYS-CFX.