Dissipation in oscillating water columns

The Oscillating Water Column (OWC), regarded as the first generation Wave Energy Converter (WEC), is one of the most effective technologies for extraction of ocean wave energy. Most OWCs are designed to resonate at incoming wave frequencies, so that efficiency of the device would be the maximum. However, the damping factors, which control the actual value of this maximum, are not clearly identified and modelled. Therefore, an extensive study of the internal fluid dynamics of an OWC is carried out to identify those damping factors, and furthermore, to estimate the amount of energy loss due to their presence in OWCs.