Analysis of Wave Energy Converting Characteristics of Wave Power Generating System Installed in Breakwater (1st Report, Estimation and Evaluation for Characteristics of Turbine-Geserator in Real Sea Field Test)

Abstract

The wave power generating system using the Wells turbine is installed in the breakwater in Sakata port, Japan, and consists of the air chamber, turbine, generator and safety devices. The purposes of this paper are to reveal the characteristics of each component in this system with the experimental data in the real sea, and to evaluate the accuracy of numerical models used in the simulation. The performance of Wells turbine is examined in detail for the unsteady and full-scale condition, comparing the data of the 1/4 scale model with the steady full-scale one. It is found that the performance of the system for the wave can be evaluated accurately with the steady characteristics of the turbine, in the condition that stall does not happen on the rotor. The angle of attack for the stall depends on the wave characteristics such as the magnitude of unsteadiness, requiring many trials to get the stall angle used by the calculations.