Power-Load Characteristics of Fixed Oscillating Water Column Chambers for Potential Integration with Offshore Wind Jacket Foundations

Abstract

The integration of wave energy converters with offshore wind foundations offers a potential route to improving the utilization of offshore renewable energy infrastructure. This study numerically investigates the power-load characteristics of fixed oscillating water column (OWC) chambers intended for potential installation near offshore wind jacket foundations. A preliminary jacket comparison is first used to delimit the scope, after which the main parametric study is performed on isolated OWC chambers so that pneumatic response and local chamber loads can be compared consistently. The simulations are conducted under regular waves with a wave height of H = 0.05 m, a water depth of h = 1.6 m, and wave periods of T = 0.9–1.7 s. Three baseline geometries, namely cylindrical, sandglass-shaped, and bottle-shaped OWCs, are first screened in order to identify the most suitable reference chamber family. The cylindrical chamber is then retained as the reference configuration for subsequent local parameter studies of the frustum-contraction parameter D2 and the front-wall draft d2. The results indicate that the geometric effect is strongly dependent on the incident-wave period. The sandglass-shaped and bottle-shaped chambers can enhance short-period pneumatic power or reduce loads at longer periods, whereas the cylindrical chamber provides a more consistent reference response over the tested range. Under the wave conditions adopted in this study, further analysis reveals that D2 exerts a non-monotonic tuning effect varying with wave period. For the selected frustum-shaped configuration, increasing d2 reduces hydrodynamic loads yet simultaneously weakens pneumatic power output and CWR. Because the air phase is treated as incompressible and the orifice represents an orifice-only damping condition rather than a turbine-controlled PTO system, the reported Pe should be interpreted as a pneumatic/hydrodynamic comparison metric and not as wave-to-wire electrical power. The conclusions are therefore positioned as regular-wave geometry-tuning trends for the present model scale rather than as full coupled jacket-OWC design rules.

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