Aerodynamic study of a self-rectifying impulse turbine based on OWC wave energy prototype

Abstract

Many countries of the world fulfill their power requirements through non-renewable energy resources which include fossil fuels, earth minerals and nuclear fuels. The massive use of these non-renewable energy resources has created an alarming situation resulting in harmful climatic variation throughout the world. So, the need of hour is to focus on sustainable and clean renewable energy resources to fulfill energy demands. In this regard, the ocean waves are considered significant renewable energy resource to extract the energy from sea waves. This research paper represents the parametric investigation of wave energy model based on oscillating water column technique. Self-rectifying impulse turbine of specific design parameters is used in this research work to convert maximum wave energy into mechanical energy. Designing of turbine blade, guide wave geometry and oscillating water column is performed on CREO and Pro-Engineer. While FEM software "Gambit and Fluent" are used to achieve fine meshing and profiles of tangential and radial velocity. Maximum efficiency attained from this designed wave energy model is 35%, while rpms of shaft are calculated 200. This paper realizes the fact that wave energy has a lot of potential for research.