Experimental evaluation of the effect of dimensionless hydrodynamic coefficients on the performance of a multi-chamber oscillating water column converter in laboratory scale

Wave conditions have a significant effect on the hydrodynamic behavior of OWC. As the interactions of the WEC and the incident waves are important, therefore, due to the importance of coefficients in evaluating the performance of the OWC, in this paper, the experimental evaluation of dimensionless hydrodynamic coefficients of a MC-OWC is applied. To define the experimental tests, considering the installation location of the converter on the break water, the conditions of the Caspian Sea implemented. Calibration and uncertainty analysis have performed, experimental tests have been carried out in the wave tank of the BNUT. According to the results, assuming a dimensionless water depth, with increasing dimensionless frequency of the wave, the dimensionless coefficient of transmitted wave, the dimensionless coefficient of reflected wave, dimensionless coefficient of discharge and the dimensionless coefficient of pressure increase. The results showed that due to the change of dimensionless wave number from 1.9 to 3.3, discharge coefficients, reflected wave, pressure and transmitted wave are 1.6 times, 2.2 times, 2.8 times, respectively, are 3.5 times, the dimensionless coefficient of the transmitted wave is highly sensitive to the wave conditions; the dimensional coefficient of discharge will have less changes compared to other coefficients. On the other hand, the results showed that the OWC in this study has an efficiency of 41.8% in the best case. This efficiency occurs at the dimensionless natural frequency of 0.88 and the dimensionless water intake depth of 0.032; under these conditions, the amplitude of water fluctuations inside the OWC reaches 9.6 cm.