• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.1021-1040
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• 2015

An effective method to calculate aerodynamic loads and aeroelastic responses of large wind turbine tower-blade coupled structures in yaw condition is proposed. By a case study on a 5 MW large wind turbine, the finite element model of the wind turbine tower-blade coupled structure is established to obtain the modal information. The harmonic superposition method and modified blade-element momentum theory are used to calculate aerodynamic loads in yaw condition, in which the wind shear, tower shadow, tower-blade modal and aerodynamic interactions, and rotational effects are fully taken into account. The mode superposition method is used to calculate kinetic equation of wind turbine tower-blade coupled structure in time domain. The induced velocity and dynamic loads are updated through iterative loop, and the aeroelastic responses of large wind turbine tower-blade coupled system are then obtained. For completeness, the yaw effect and aeroelastic effect on aerodynamic loads and wind-induced responses are discussed in detail based on the calculating results.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.93-108
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• 2022

Steel tubular towers are commonly used in UHV and long crossing transmission lines. By considering effects of the model scale, the solidity ratio and the ratio of the mean width to the mean height, wind tunnel tests under different wind speeds on twenty tubular steel tower body models and twenty-six tubular steel cross-arm models were completed. Drag coefficients and shielding factors of the experimental tower body models and cross-arm models in wind directional axis for typical skewed angles were obtained. The influence of the lift forces on the skewed wind load factors of tubular steel tower bodies was evaluated. The skewed wind load factors, the wind load distribution factors in transversal and longitudinal direction were calculated for the tubular tower body models and cross-arm models, respectively. Fitting expressions for the skewed wind load factors of tubular steel bodies and cross-arms were determined through nonlinear fitting analysis. Parameters for skewed wind loads determined by wind tunnel tests were compared with the regulations in applicable standards. Suggestions on the drag coefficients, the skewed wind load factors and the wind load distribution factors were proposed for tubular steel transmission towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2020

This paper presents a comparative structural analysis of lattice hybrid tower with six legs with conventional tubular steel tower for an onshore wind turbine using finite element method. Usually a lattice hybrid tower will have a conventional industry standard 'L' profile section for the lattice construction with four legs. In this work, the researcher attempted to identify and analyze the strength of six legged lattice hybrid tower designed with a special profile instead of four legged L profile. And to compare the structural benefits of special star profile with the conventional tubular tower. Using Ansys, a commercial FEM software, both static and dynamic structural analyses were performed. A simplified finite element model that represents the wind turbine tower was created using Shell elements. An ultimate load condition was applied to check the stress level of the tower in the static analysis. For the dynamic analysis, the frequency extraction was performed in order to obtain the natural frequencies of the tower.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.25 no.6_2
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• pp.993-1002
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• 2022

This paper relates to a method of modeling the thrust dynamic load caused by the thrust variation occurring on the blade due to the tower shadow below the rated wind speed. A method that uses thrust coefficient is presented by introducing "tower shadow coefficient of thrust variation". For a 2MW wind turbine, the values of "tower shadow coefficient of thrust variation" are calculated and analyzed at wind speeds below the rated. The dynamic load model of thrust under tower shadow is evaluated in Matlab/Simulink using the obtained "tower shadow coefficient of thrust variation" and thrust coefficient. It shows that the thrust variations acting on the three blades by the tower shadow can be expressed using both the thrust coefficient and the introduced "tower shadow coefficient of thrust variation".

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.735-753
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• 2013

The wind load is always the dominant load of cooling tower due to its large size, complex geometry and thin-wall structure. At present, when computing the wind-induced response of the large-scale cooling tower, the wind pressure distribution is obtained based on code regulations, wind tunnel test or computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis, and then is imposed on the tower structure. However, such method fails to consider the change of the wind load with the deformation of cooling tower, which may result in error of the wind load. In this paper, the analysis of the large cooling tower based on the iterative method for wind pressure is studied, in which the advantages of CFD and finite element method (FEM) are combined in order to improve the accuracy. The comparative study of the results obtained from the code regulations and iterative method is conducted. The results show that with the increase of the mean wind speed, the difference between the methods becomes bigger. On the other hand, based on the design of experiment (DOE), an approximate model is built for the optimal design of the large-scale cooling tower by a two-level optimization strategy, which makes use of code-based design method and the proposed iterative method. The results of the numerical example demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.479-496
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• 2008

In this paper, computer simulation of wind flow around a single cooling tower with louver support at the base in the KAZERUN power station in south part of IRAN is presented as a case study. ANSYS FLOTRAN, an unstructured finite element incompressible flow solver, is used for numerical investigation of wind induced pressure load on a single cooling tower. Since the effects of the wind ribs on external surface of the cooling tower shell which plays important role in formation of turbulent flow field, an innovative relation is introduced for modeling the effects of wind ribs on computation of wind pressure on cooling tower's shell. The introduced relation which follows the concept of equivalent sand roughness for the wall function is used in conjunction with two equations ${\kappa}-{\varepsilon}$ turbulent model. In this work, the effects of variation in the height/spacing ratio of external wind ribs are numerically investigated. Conclusions are made by comparison between computed pressure loads on external surface of cooling tower and the VGB (German guideline for cooling tower design) suggestions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.257-273
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• 2010

The aerodynamic and aero-elastic model tests of the China''s highest cooling tower has been carried out in the TJ-3 Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel of Tongji University. By adopting a scanivalve system, the external wind pressure is firstly measured on $12{\times}36$ taps for a single tower, two and four grouped towers under the condition of both smooth flow and the boundary layer due to surrounding geographic and building topography. The measurements of internal wind pressure distribution of $6{\times}36$ taps are taken for a single tower under the various ventilation ratios ranging from 0% to 100% of stuffing layers located at the bottom of the tower. In the last stage, the wind tunnel tests with an aero-elastic model are carefully conducted to determine wind-induced displacements at six levels (each with eight points) with laser displacement sensors. According to the measurement results of wind pressure or vibration response, the extreme aerodynamic loading values of the single or grouped towers are accordingly analyzed based on probability correlation technique.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.427-443
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• 2024

By using a computational program of three-dimensional aerostatic and aerodynamic stability analysis of long-span bridges under skew wind, the dynamic characteristics and structural stability(including the aerostatic and aerodynamic stability) of a three-tower cable-stayed-suspension hybrid bridge with main span of 1 400 meters are investigated numerically under skew wind, and the skew wind and aerostatic effects on the aerostatic and aerodynamic stability of three-tower cable-stayedsuspension hybrid bridge are ascertained. The results show that the three-tower cable-stayed-suspension hybrid bridge is a longspan structure with greater flexibility, and it is more susceptible to the wind action. The aerostatic instability of three-tower cable-stayed-suspension hybrid bridges is characterized by the coupling of vertical bending and torsion of the girder, and the skew wind does not affect the aerostatic instability mode. The skew wind has positive or negative effects on the aerostatic stability of the bridge, the influence is between -5.38% and 4.64%, and in most cases, it reduces the aerostatic stability of the bridge. With the increase of wind yaw angle, the critical wind speed of aerostatic instability does not vary as the cosine rule as proposed by the skew wind decomposition method, the skew wind decomposition method may overestimate the aerostatic stability, and the maximum overestimation is 16.7%. The flutter critical wind speed fluctuates with the increase of wind yaw angle, and it may reach to the minimum value under the skew wind. The skew wind has limited effect on the aerodynamic stability of three-tower cable-stayed-suspension hybrid bridge, however the aerostatic effect significantly reduces the aerodynamic stability of the bridge under skew wind, the reduction is between 3.66% and 21.86%, with an overall average drop of 11.59%. The combined effect of skew and static winds further reduces the critical flutter wind speed, the decrease is between 7.91% and 19.37%, with an overall average decrease of 11.85%. Therefore, the effects of skew and static winds must be comprehensively considered in the aerostatic and aerodynamic stability analysis of three-tower cable-stayed-suspension hybrid bridges.

• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.61-67
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• 2011

In the present study, numerical unsteady simulations of the NREL Phase VI wind turbine in downwind operation conditions were conducted to investigate rotor-tower interaction. The calculations were performed using an unstructured mesh, incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes flow solver. To capture the unsteady effects associated with the tower shadow between the rotor blades and the tower, the wind turbine was modelled including the rotor, tower, hub, and nacelle. The present results generally showed good agreements with available experimental data. At the lowest wind speed, the pressure distribution was characterized by a complete collapse of the suction peak on the blade when the blade passes through the tower wake. It was found that unsteady effects play a significant role in the response of the blades.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.68-71
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• 2005

In the case of wind turbine design, Optimization of tower structure is very important because tower generally takes about $20\%$ of overall turbine cost. In this paper, we calculated wind loads considering vortex shedding, and optimized tower flange using the calculation results. For optimization, we used FEM to analyze structural strength of the flange and blade momentum theory to calculate wind loads.