Design feasibility of double-skinned composite tubular wind turbine tower

Abstract

A double-skinned composite tubular (DSCT) wind power tower was suggested and automatic section design software was developed. The developed software adopted the nonlinear material model and the nonlinear column model. If the outer diameter, material properties and design capacities of a DSCT wind power tower are given, the developed software performs axial force-bending moment interaction analyses for hundreds of sections of the tower and suggests ten optimized cross-sectional designs. In this study, 80 sections of DSCT wind power towers were designed for 3.6 MW and 5.0 MW turbines. Moreover, the performances of the 80 designed sections were analyzed with and without considerations of large displacement effect. In designing and analyzing them, the material nonlinearity and the confining effect of concrete were considered. The comparison of the analysis results showed the moment capacity loss of the wind power tower by the mass of the turbine is significant and the large displacement effect should be considered for the safe design of the wind power tower.