Dynamic Analysis of a Reinforced-Concrete
Post Tensioned Wind Turbine Tower
Emre Ercan
1(&)
, Emin Hökelekli
2
, and Anıl Özdemir
3
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ege University,
İzmir, Turkey
emre.ercan@ege.edu.tr
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Bartın University,
Bartın, Turkey
ehokelekli@bartin.edu.tr
3
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Gazi University,
Ankara, Turkey
anilozdemir@gazi.edu.tr
Abstract. Wind energy turbines have drawn great interest especially for the last
2 decades. Today newly developed high-power wind energy generators require
long blades and tall towers with large base diameter which exceeds the allow-
able width for highway transportation. The tower must also be divided through
longitudinal and connected on site to overcome transportation problem. In this
case welding dif ficulties, other technological aspects on site increase the cost of
steel towers. However, concrete towers precast or cast on site, becomes a
competitive alternative to current steel solutions for the wind energy towers, due
to its lower cost and higher durability. As the generator on top produces a
variable and continues vibration the dynamic properties of the towers becomes
more important than any other structures due to resonance effect. In wind tur-
bines, inexact calculation of natural frequencies or change of natural frequencies
due to concrete cracking by time may harm the whole structure. So this makes
post tensioning very important for wind energy towers. Post tensioning avoids
tension strength which in turn prevents fatigue cracks in concrete elements
which are exposed to tension strength. In this paper, the concept of a 100 m tall
modular prefabricated posttensioned high-performance concrete 3.6 MW wind
generator tower is presented. In the study the finite element model of the tower
is prepared and under wind and rotor loads the structural analysis of the tower is
presented.
Keywords: Wind turbine tower Á Post tensioned concrete Á Structural analysis
FEM
1 Introduction
Wind energy tower options for producing wind turbine towers are steel, concrete and
hybrid towers. Steel is very popular in wind energy towers because it has a featured
design alternative and steel towers are produced by many manufacturers. Moreover,
Steel has high strength to weight ratio and competitive cost in the current market.
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
S. Fırat et al. (eds.), Proceedings of 3rd International Sustainable Buildings
Symposium (ISBS 2017), Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 6,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63709-9_52