Analytical and numerical investigation of an innovative Oscillating Water Column device with immersed turbine

Wave Energy Converters are becoming more attractive. However, their design has to be suitable to the deployment site. In this paper, coupled analytical and numerical analyses are presented for the optimization of an Oscillating Water Column with an immersed Wells turbine. To understand the physics of such a complex device, preliminary studies were conducted by an analytical approach. The main geometrical features are investigated in a very quick and reliable way as testified by the comparison with the CFD calculations. Computational Fluid Dynamics studies were devoted to shape optimization of the intake and to evaluate the extracted power as a function of turbine characteristics (for example angular velocity) and incident waves.