Effect of reciprocating and unidirectional airflow on primary conversion of a pentagonal Backward Bent Duct Buoy

Abstract An Oscillating Water Column (OWC) device can output energy through reciprocating or unidirectional airflow. The unidirectional airflow is helpful to utilize a simple and high-efficiency unidirectional air turbine. The pentagonal BBDB proposed by us based on OWC principle can be regarded as a floating Oscillating Body and its Power Take-Off (PTO) consists of a chamber, a water column, a turbine and a generator. The Capture Width Ratio (CWR) of the pentagonal BBDB model with the reciprocating and unidirectional airflow was studied in this paper. The wave flume test results indicate the mean CWR of the pentagonal BBDB model with reciprocating airflow can reach up to 121.91% and the mean CWR of the model with unidirectional airflow could reach 100.94% during the whole wave cycle in regular waves. For irregular waves, the mean CWR of the model with the unidirectional airflow is as high as 62.83% during the whole wave cycle. Hopefully, the combination of the pentagonal BBDB with the check valve to output power during the air exhalation and conventional high-efficiency unidirectional turbine will improve the total efficiency of the BBDB.