Experimental investigation of a Multi-OWC wind turbine floating platform

Abstract

The worldwide energy supply needs to be enhanced following the expanding of electrical energy request. Marine renewable energies have the potential to partially cover the incoming energy growth but the economic unfeasibility slows down their exploitation. Specifically, the viability and technological development of Wave Energy Converters could be improved through the integration into already existing offshore structures. Against this background, this work proposes a novel concept of hybrid platform composed of a spar buoy wind turbine integrated with three Oscillating Water Columns (OWCs). An experimental investigation is carried out in the wave basin of Marine Technology Research Institute (CNR-INM, Rome, Italy) aiming to analyze of the performance of the hybrid system prototype. The scaling procedure and the experimental setup are described. The focus of the analysis is on the hydrodynamic behavior of the OWCs’ air chambers considering both wave and wind loads. The influence of the wind action and the effect of air chambers damping variation on the dynamic behavior of the floating platform are deepened towards the resulted power extraction performances of the OWCs. Different wind and wave conditions are considered to test the scaled model. As result, the OWCs hydrodynamic response is positively affected by angular motion of the platform, due to the influence of the wind loads. The increasing in the damping affects the air pressure and the relative water level inside the OWCs, hence the mean extracted power.