Experimental Investigation of Air Turbine for Utilization of Wave Energy

Working toward replacing conventional fossil fuels with alternative renewable energy, offshore renewable energy technologies give promising solutions, even though each of the types (wind, wave, tidal and thermal) is at a different stage of development and with its own unique challenges and opportunities. This paper is focused on sea wind wave energy harvesting through a hybrid system that combines both a water turbine with oscillating blades and “Wells”-type air turbine. A test bench was designed and tested at different flow rates to study the performance of the hybrid system and more precisely the “Wells”-type turbine. Experimental studies of the main parameters of a turbine were conducted, which demonstrated the efficiency of the turbine and its good practical application. The experimental results show good agreement with the preliminary performed numerical simulations, as well as with the published data.