Category: Towers & Foundations
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Nabrawind Transition Foundation
Some days ago I have been contacted by Miguel, Sales And Marketing Manager at Nabrawind. Nabrawind is a Spanish company working at several interesting breakthrough concepts – including a modular blade that I will try to describe in another article in the future, a self erecting tower and the innovative “Transition Foundation”. Miguel asked me if…
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Lift me up: the braced foundation
The braced foundation is a partially precast foundation that lift the wind turbine some additional meters above the ground. Developed and patented by Esteyco (a Spanish engineering firm) is a technical solution validated, certified and used in several wind farms worldwide. This solution increase the hub height up to 5 meters, which usually results in…
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Non linear finite element design on wind turbine foundations
The design of wind turbine foundations is currently based on the plate theory. “Plates” are plane structural element and the theory (or “theories” – there are at least two currently used) calculate stress and deformation when the structure is loaded. During the analysis several difficulties emerges in satisfying equilibrium, stress-strain relations, compatibility of strains and…
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Once More, with Feeling: Timber Towers
Approximately one year ago I wrote a post about a full scale prototype of a wind turbine tower made of wood. It has been built in 2012, but after that the idea seemed to have stalled without progress: one of the companies involved in the construction, TimberTower GmbH, disappeared from the radar shutting down their website and…
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Printable 3D concrete wind turbine towers
Yes, you’re reading right – you can print your concrete tower. I have discussed in many previous articles how I see some evidence that we are reaching the maximum size for steel towers, mainly because of transportation issues. For higher towers concrete towers could help solving the problem, as they can be transported in pieces…
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Dancing in the wind
I have discussed in other post the phenomenal growth of the dimensions of wind turbines in the last 2 decades. Bigger rotors, taller towers and more MW has been the industry trend year after year. There is some evidence that we are reaching the limit – blades of more than 50m length pose significant logistic challenges, while…
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Where have all the wind turbine gone? Foldable towers
In previous post some years ago I have described two alternative solution for the wind turbine tower that should help solving the problem of the huge cranes that are currently needed for the erection of the wind turbines components. One is the self-lifting precast tower developed by Esteyco, a Spanish engineering company that developed several…
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Second life: the destiny of turbine foundations after decommissioning
I have discussed in another article the challenges associated with the disposal of the blades when a wind farm is decommissioned or repowered. But what happen to the foundations? The destiny of a foundation will depends on local regulations, on the environmental requirements that are normally given with building permits and on the wish of…
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Good vibrations: wind induced resonance and turbines oscillations
Have you ever wondered why sometimes the wind turbines (and other similar tall structure) sometime vibrate? Under some conditions the wind blowing on the tower create vortices. These vortices appears regularly on both sides of the tower, creating low pressure zones first on one side and then in the other. For these reason the tower…
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A soft spot for BoP: the soft-spot foundation
The soft spot foundation is another interesting technical solution that appeared in the marked some years ago. Basically, it is similar to a standard shallow foundation with a certain amount of a foamy, soft material just in the middle below the anchor cage. I understand that different alternative materials can be used, being a standard…