• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2021

To determine the wind turbine class in the offshore of the Korean Peninsula, the reference wind speed for a 50-y return period at the hub height of a wind turbine was estimated using the reanalysis data sets. The most recent reanalysis data, ERA5, showed the highest correlation coefficient (R) of 0.82 with the wind speed measured by the Southwest offshore meteorological tower. However, most of the reanaysis data sets except CFSR underestimated the annual maximum wind speed. The gust factor of converting the 1 h-average into the 10 min-average wind speed was 1.03, which is the same as the WMO reference, using several meteorological towers and lidar measurements. Because the period, frequency, and path of typhoons invading the Korean Peninsula has been changing owing to the climate effect, significant differences occurred in the estimation of the extreme wind speed. Depending on the past data period and length, the extreme wind speed differed by more than 30% and the extreme wind speed decreased as the data period became longer. Finally, a reference wind speed map around the Korean Peninsula was drawn using the data of the last 10 years at the general hub-height of 100 m above the sea level.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1764-1769
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• 2014

Numerical investigations have been conducted on the junction that connect the multi-tubular section and the single shell section in order to evaluate applicability of hybrid sections in wind turbine towers instead of conventional single shell towers. Major characteristics in structural details include extension of multi-tubular member into shell end section, installation of wing stiffeners, and different layout of floor beams. Elastic and nonlinear incremental analyses were conducted to examine stress concentration patterns and ultimate behaviors, respectively. Based on evaluation of structural performance due to vertical and horizontal forces, it has been confirmed that installation of floor beams and wing stiffeners sensitively affect ultimate strength of global wind tower.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.655-662
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• 2013

Recently, by the problems owing to utilization of fossil fuel, various green energies receive attention. Wind, the impetus for the wind power generation as one of the green energies, is observed higher quality value in the offshore than onshore. Also, the development of offshore wind turbines is in the spotlight as alternative to solve the problems of onshore wind farm such as securing sites, noise, and electromagnetic waves, and to get efficient wind energy. Therefore, the many researches on offshore wind energy have been carried out. As wind towers are advanced to ocean, offshore wind towers have been enlarged. Thus, stability is required to endure wind force and wave force. In this study, the external forces act on the foundation in multi-layered are calculated by p-y relation.

• Composites Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.54-61
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• 2012

In this study, a specific structural design procedure for 2 MW class glass/epoxy composite wind turbine system towers is newly proposed through load case study, trade-off study, optimal structural design and structural analysis. Optimal tower design is very important because its cost is about 20% of the wind turbine system's cost. In the structural design of the tower, three kinds of loads such as wind load, blades, nacelle and tower weight and blade aerodynamic drag load should be considered. Initial structural design is carried out using the netting rule and the rule of mixture. Then the structural safety and stability are confirmed using a commercial finite element code, MSC NASTRAN/PATRAN. The finally proposed tower configuration meets the tower design requirements.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.75-92
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• 2016

The design of a semi-active (SA) control system addressed to mitigate wind induced structural demand to high wind turbine towers is discussed herein. Actually, the remarkable growth in height of wind turbines in the last decades, for a higher production of electricity, makes this issue pressing than ever. The main objective is limiting bending moment demand by relaxing the base restraint, without increasing the top displacement, so reducing the incidence of harmful "p-delta" effects. A variable restraint at the base, able to modify in real time its mechanical properties according to the instantaneous response of the tower, is proposed. It is made of a smooth hinge with additional elastic stiffness and variable damping respectively given by springs and SA magnetorheological (MR) dampers installed in parallel. The idea has been physically realized at the Denmark Technical University where a 1/20 scale model of a real, one hundred meters tall wind turbine has been assumed as case study for shaking table tests. A special control algorithm has been purposely designed to drive MR dampers. Starting from the results of preliminary laboratory tests, a finite element model of such structure has been calibrated so as to develop several numerical simulations addressed to calibrate the controller, i.e., to achieve as much as possible different, even conflicting, structural goals. The results are definitely encouraging, since the best configuration of the controller leaded to about 80% of reduction of base stress, as well as to about 30% of reduction of top displacement in respect to the fixed base case.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.39 no.7
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• pp.721-727
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• 2015

The mechanical components for wind turbines are mainly manufactured using open-die forging. This research introduces an advanced forging method to produce the door frame of the tubular wind turbine tower. The advantages of this new forging method are an increase in the raw material utilization ratio and a reduction in energy cost. In the conventional method, the door frame is hot forged with a hydraulic press and amounts of material are machined out because of the shape difference between the forged and final machine products. The proposed forging method is composed of hot forging and ring rolling processes to increase the material utilization ratio. The effectiveness of this new forging method is deeply related to the ring rolled blank dimension before the final forging. To get the optimal ring rolled blank, forged shape prediction using the finite element analysis method was applied. The forged dimensions produced by the new forging method were verified through the first article production.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.183-196
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• 2010

Monitoring and economical design of alternative energy generators such as wind turbines is becoming increasingly critical; however acquisition of the dynamic output data can be a time-consuming and costly process. In recent years, low-cost wireless sensors have emerged as an enabling technology for structural monitoring applications. In this study, wireless sensor networks are installed in three operational turbines in order to demonstrate their efficacy in this unique operational environment. The objectives of the first installation are to verify that vibrational (acceleration) data can be collected and transmitted within a turbine tower and that it is comparable to data collected using a traditional tethered system. In the second instrumentation, the wireless network includes strain gauges at the base of the structure. Also, data is collected regarding the performance of the wireless communication channels within the tower. In both turbines, collected wireless sensor data is used for off-line, output-only modal analysis of the ambiently (wind) excited turbine towers. The final installation is on a turbine with embedded braking capabilities within the nacelle to generate an "impulse-like" load at the top of the tower. This ability to apply such a load improves the modal analysis results obtained in cases where ambient excitation fails to be sufficiently broad-band or white. The improved loading allows for computation of true mode shapes, a necessary precursor to many conditional monitoring techniques.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2015

Wind power systems have gained much attention due to the relatively high reliability, good infrastructures and cost competitiveness to the fossil fuels. Advances have been made to increase the power efficiency of wind turbines while less attention has been focused on structural integrity assessment of structural sub-systems such as towers and foundations. Among many parameters for integrity assessment, the most perceptive parameter may be the induced horizontal displacement at the hub height although it is very difficult to measure particularly in large-scale and high-rise wind turbine structures. This study proposes an indirect displacement estimation scheme based on the combined use of inclinometers and accelerometers for more convenient and cost-effective measurements. To this end, (1) the formulation for data fusion of inclination and acceleration responses was presented and (2) the proposed method was numerically validated on an NREL 5 MW wind turbine model. The numerical analysis was carried out to investigate the performance of the propose method according to the number of sensors, the resolution and the available sampling rate of the inclinometers to be used.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.135-140
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• 2016

This paper examined the uniaxial compressive strength of longitudinally-stiffened octangular modular section towers. Through a series of comparative studies, the 3-dimensional finite element analysis results were considerably larger than the nominal strength values based on Eurocode. Therefore, the design strength equations are simply applicable to the design of the octangular-section tower module, but a more rational method will be needed to properly predict the capacity.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.309-314
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• 2014

The structural layout of mechanical and civil structures is commonly obtained using conventional methods. For example, the shape of structures such as electric transmission towers and offshore substructures can be generated systematically. However, with rapid advancements in computer graphic technology, advanced structural analyses and optimum design technologies have been implemented. In this study, the structural shape of a jacket substructure for an offshore wind turbine is investigated using a topology optimization technique. The structure is subjected to multiple loads that are intended to simulate the loading conditions during actual operation. The optimization objective function is defined as one that ensures compliance of the structure under the given boundary conditions. Optimization is carried out with constraints on the natural frequency in addition to the volume constraint. The result of a first step model provides quick insights into the optimum layout for the second step structure. Subsequently, a 3D model in the form of the frustum of a quadrilateral pyramid is developed through topology optimization.