Reference no: EM133049758

M22010 Structural Application of Finite Elements - University of Portsmouth

Design of Wind Turbine Tower

Background
Renewable sources of energy represent a fundamental element in the attempt to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions related to fossil fuel. Windfarms play an important role: in 2020, the UK generated more than 75 GWh of electricity from both offshore and onshore wind, contributing to more than 24% of the British grid electricity1.

Conceptually, an onshore wind turbine has a simple layout: a tall support above a foundation known as "tower" hosts an alternator that transforms in electricity the mechanical power collected by the blades. The height of the tower is considerable for two reasons: (i) the wind is more stable and intense far away from the ground; (ii) the turbine blades usually has a considerable diameter, requiring a safe clearance from the ground.

Structurally, the wind tower is a slender structure that must be designed to withstand considerable stresses: both static and dynamic loads might arise from extreme wind conditions involving big surfaces and considerable masses. On the other hand, there is the significant necessity to avoid oversized structures for economic considerations, production manufacturability limitation, difficulties in assembling the structures and integration with the landscape.

Usually towers are made of metal, with a tapered shape and a circular cross section. Many examples of collapse have casted shadows on the reliability as well as on the safety of these structures, fuelling in some cases some reluctance in local communities affected by new installations.

Coursework brief: Design Verification Task

You are required to design a tower for an onshore wind turbine. Geometrical details for the tower as well as total mass of the nacelle and diameter of the blades are reported in table T1 for your group ID.

You are asked to produce a tentative design for the tower, providing a preliminary analysis of its structural integrity and safety. A complete guideline for a rigorous analysis is provided by BS EN IEC 61400-1:2019 "Wind energy generation systems. Design requirements". Nevertheless, for the purpose of this initial stage a simplified approach (respect to what prescribe in the international and British Standard) for defining the loading scenario(s) can be adopted, and a reference wind speed of 30 m/s impacting the structure, with possible gusts in the range +/- 20% within 10 seconds can be also considered.

The geometry of the tower is free as well as the material(s) selection; however, the tower must:
• have a tapered geometry.
• be made of metallic material.
• have a considerate and realistic section and layout (e.g. access to the nacelle must be possible via an internal ladder; cables to transmit electrical power up and from the nacelle must be hosted internally, etc.)

Specification for the Design Verification:
• You need to verify the design of the structure using the finite element method and perform a series of numerical analyses using ABAQUS. The series of analyses taken into consideration must be justified and discussed, i.e. the relevance of considering/neglecting one of the analyses discussed during the unit must be justified.
• You must identify and discuss reasonable loading condition(s), making it clear the level of simplifications adopted; simplifications of the structure if and when appropriate must be discussed for each proposed analysis.
• A minimal analysis of the overall structural problem is expected.

Coursework Requirements

The online submission is composed by two mandatory parts:

1. You will produce a report in the form of a PowerPoint (or equivalent) presentation (max 30 slides) including your design assumptions, analytical calculations (if any), details about finite element analyses performed, results, including a discussion and interpretation of those.

2. The ".inp" file that make it possible to reproduce the analyses mentioned in the presentation

Attachment:- Structural Application of Finite Elements.rar