Oscillating Water Columns

Oscillating Water Columns (OWCs) model pneumatic energy conversion chambers where wave-induced water oscillation compresses and expands air through a turbine.

Concept

An OWC chamber is a partially submerged structure open at the bottom. Waves cause the internal water surface to oscillate, compressing the air above it and driving flow through a turbine (Wells or impulse type).

graph TB
    W[Waves] -->|excitation| C[OWC Chamber]
    C -->|air flow| T[Turbine]
    T -->|pressure| C
    C ---|coupled to| B[Floating Body]

Configuration

OWC chambers are defined in dataOWCs.dat. Each chamber is associated with a body in the hydrodynamic database (multi-body HDB with one floater + N OWC bodies).

Turbine properties are defined in dataOWCTurbines.dat.

Output Files

File	Columns
OWC_<ID>.txt	Time, Displacement, Velocity, Pressure

Header: Time Displacement Velocity Pressure

Related Examples

Work in Progress

OWC examples are under active development.

Example	Feature
owcs/free_decay	Chamber free oscillation
owcs/excitation	Wave excitation on OWC
owcs/hole_coupling	Pneumatic coupling through orifice
owcs/turbine_coupling	OWC with turbine model