Novel Air Turbine Testing Device for an Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converter

A combined heaving point absorber and oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converter (WEC) shows promise for distributed applications of wave energy such as remote sensing and communications. One aspect of the OWC WEC design which can be optimized to improve performance is the air turbine. Several axial, bidirectional air turbine designs have been studied, but full turbine characterization and side-by-side comparison via laboratory and in-situ testing is lacking. The present work describes the design and construction of a novel WEC air turbine testing system, followed by the preliminary testing and characterization of a representative turbine design.