In countries like India, wind turbine heights are rapidly increasing to harvest more wind energy at a given location. In recent years, due to increase in hub height of windmill likelihood, soil lying below foundation may influence dynamic response of wind turbines. By increasing the height of the conventional monopole supporting system, it becomes slender and dynamically sensitive under the influence of soil below foundation; therefore, in the present investigation, hybrid supporting system is proposed to avoid slenderness effect of monopole system. A 1:40 scaled model of 78-m-high conventional monopole windmill and hybrid windmill comprised of nacelle, rotor mass and supporting tower are prepared in the laboratory. To study the behavior of both the towers under operational dynamic loads of rotor, laboratory tests were conducted on scaled model considering soil below foundation. Simulations of experimental analysis are presented for multi-degree of freedom turbine structure subjected to dynamic loading of rotor considering soil stiffness below base. It is examined in terms of displacement in time domain, shear at base of tower and response spectra. From laboratory tests and its simulation, it can be concluded that hybrid supporting system are recommended for windmill towers with higher hub heights considering soil stiffness below foundations.
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