The Development of Laboratory-Scale Oscillating Water Column OWC Test Rig with Real-Time Data Monitoring System

Abstract

Oscillating water column (OWC) with vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) involves extracting ocean waves into electrical energy. To know the performance of OWC with VAWT in depth requires a complex monitoring system. This article focuses on two discussions. The first is manufacturing the laboratory-scale OWC test rig, and the second is developing and validating the real-time monitoring system for the purpose-built OWC system. The monitoring system we proposed was consists of the sensors unit, MCU, and monitoring unit. The sensor unit is placed in certain parts of the test rig. And then, the measurement variables include wave oscillations, water surface oscillations in the chamber, rotation of the Savonius turbine in the OWC, air pressure in the chamber. The data acquisition uses the Arduino-Uno with graphics interface using the LabVIEW program. The test rig and the monitoring system have been successfully developed and tested on the OWC prototype with laboratory-scale VAWT. OWC and turbine performance measurement data have been successfully displayed in an interactive form and stored in data logging on a computer.