Behavior study of prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower in circular cross-section

Abstract

In this work, we sought to study the behavior of prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower in circular cross-section. The idea was to use Genetic Algorithm to obtain a structural optimization of the projected tower. Thus, a tower with the shape of a conical section was obtained, which minimizes the appearance of stress concentrations in the structure. The tower has a tapered profile to reduce the area subjected to wind thus lower the total weight and applied moment. It will also enhance the dynamic response of the tower and improve its overall stability. Steel tubular wind turbine towers are most widely utilized for wind turbines, however, the use of concrete material is becoming more attractive for wind towers because concrete towers are more stable for buckling failure. As the turbine size is growing and the towers are rising in height, steel towers are required to be sufficiently strong and stiff, consequently leading to high construction costs. Therefore, the prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower has a reduced construction cost compared to the steel tubular wind turbine towers or the self-supporting steel truss towers with a maximum height of 150 m. For this, Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) tools were used and a 100 m prestressed concrete tower system for a wind turbine was optimized. It is concluded that the model met all the restrictions described and represents an economy in raw material and greater simplicity of design in relation to the octagonal model used for comparison. A new structural methodology was described for the study and application of prestressed concrete to replace the steel towers currently used.