Closed-Form Solution of Fundamental Frequency of Steel-Concrete Hybrid Wind Turbine Tower

Abstract

With the development of wind power energy, the steel-concrete hybrid tower has been gradually popularized as the onshore tall wind turbine tower. To avoid the resonant response that brings violent damage to the wind turbine tower, the fundamental frequency of the hybrid tower must be carefully analyzed. This study develops a closed-form solution of the fundamental frequency of the hybrid tower, where the abrupt changes of cross-section and material properties, the effect of prestressing, and the mass and rotary inertia of the wind turbine are taken into account. It provides an effective way to obtain the fundamental frequency in the preliminary design of the hybrid tower. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated by comparing it with the results of finite element analysis, showing good agreement. By using the proposed solution, a parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the variation rules of the fundamental frequency to the design parameters. It indicates that with the variation of the proportion of the concrete/steel segments, the correlations between the fundamental frequency and the design parameters also change significantly. The parametric analysis conducted herein may provide instructive guidelines to adjust the parameters in the preliminary design of the hybrid tower.