Scale model experimental of a prestressed concrete wind turbine tower

Abstract

As concrete wind-turbine towers are increasingly being used in wind-farm construction, there is a growing need to understand the behavior of concrete wind-turbine towers. In particular, experimental evaluations of concrete wind-turbine towers are necessary to demonstrate the dynamic characteristics and load-carrying capacity of such towers. This paper describes a model test of a prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower that examines the dynamic characteristics and load-carrying performance of the tower. Additionally, a numerical model is presented and used to verify the design approach. The test results indicate that the first natural frequency of the prestressed concrete wind turbine tower is 0.395 Hz which lies between frequencies 1P and 3P (0.25-0.51 Hz). The damper ratio is 3.3%. The maximum concrete compression stresses are less than the concrete design compression strength, the maximum tensile stresses are less than zero and the prestressed strand stresses are less than the design strength under both the serviceability and ultimate limit state loads. The maximum displacement of the tower top are 331 mm and 648 mm for the serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state, respectively, which is less than L/100 = 1000 mm. Compared with traditional tall wind-turbine steel towers, the prestressed concrete tower has better material damping properties, potential lower maintenance cost, and lower construction costs. Thus, the prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower could be an innovative engineering solution for multi-megawatt wind turbine towers, in particular those that are taller than 100 m.