Abstract:
The development and utilization of renewable energy is an important way to deal with the growing energy crisis. As one form of renewable energy, wave energy has attracted the attention of many countries all over the world. The oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy device is one of the most widely used wave energy conversion technologies. Most of the previous research on OWC focuses on how to improve its energy conversion efficiency. However, the survivability of the device faces great challenges due to the complexity of sea conditions. Thus, it is important to improve the survivability of the device. The permeable breakwater has been widely implemented. It exhibits good performance in dissipating high-frequency short waves, but a poor performance in dissipating low-frequency long waves. The oscillating water column wave energy device has a strong ability to absorb long waves. In this study, the permeable breakwater and the OWC device were effectively combined. Based on the linear potential flow theory, an analytical model has been established by using the separation of variables method and the eigenfunction expansion matching method. The effect of porosity of a solitary permeable breakwater on the reflection coefficient was studied. Then, the effect of the distance between the permeable structure and the OWC device on the reflection coefficient and the hydrodynamic efficiency was studied. Compared with the solitary permeable breakwater and solitary OWC device, the integrated system exhibited superiority in terms of wave elimination.