Wind farm BoP

Category: Towers & Foundations

  • Type of towers – stiff, soft or soft soft?

    In the last month I spent a lot of time discussing about “soft soft” towers. But what does it exactly means? Steel tower for wind turbine are classified as stiff, soft, or soft soft based on the relative natural  frequencies of tower, rotor and blades. You obviously want to avoid that your tower is excited…

  • WTG tower – concrete or steel?

    One of the key decision in a wind farm is the type of tower that will be used to reach the desired hub high. In the infancy of the wind industry, lattice towers where used – you can still see them in very old wind farm, for instance in southern Spain. However, this technology was…

  • Self lifting precast wind towers

    A couple of months ago I’ve been invited by Esteyco to the erection of a prototype auto lifting precast wind tower. Although I was unable to attend due to other meetings I want to describe shortly their invention, which looks interesting. Basically, the idea is to create a tower that can “lift itself” without the…

  • Geotechnical parameters for WTG foundations design

    This is the first post after a long silence (more than 6 months), fortunately due to good news (the birth of my first son, who reduced dramatically my free time). I want to thank José Ramon, one of our experienced Project Manager, who pushed me to start again 😉 This post is about geotechnical parameters…

  • Wind Turbines Precast Foundations

    I’ve recently discovered the existence of precast foundation for wind turbines. Strangely enough, this solution isn’t having a big success, at least as far as I know. By the way, there are several clear advantages: first of all, an important time saving. According to the developer brochure, only 2 days are needed to complete the…

  • Gestamp iConkrete wind turbine foundation

    Some weeks ago a document describing a new type of wind turbine foundation, the “iCK foundation”, landed on my desk. Also known as “Gestamp Hybrid Towers” (GHT) it has been developed and patented by iConkrete and Gestamp. Essentially it is a shallow foundation made of a slab to achieve a uniform pressure distribution, a central…

  • Offshore wind turbines foundation types

    Offshore is one of the fastest growing sectors in the renewable energy business in Europe. In 2010 more than 300 new turbines have been installed, reaching a total of more than 3000 MW connected to the grid. The number is not huge, but the offshore agenda is quite busy: more than 20.000 MW are expected…

  • Wind turbine foundation remedial work: an example

    The purpose of the remedial works in a damaged wind turbine foundation is to provide an alternative load path. Other operation that are normally done are injection of mortar or resins in the cracks and water sealing. Here you have an example of remedial works in case of foundation failure and subsequent tower movements. The…

  • Cracks in onshore wind turbines foundation

    The appearance of fissures in wind turbine foundations is a rather common event. There is no consensus in the sector about the root cause of the cracks. You can find a comprehensive family tree of fracture types below: From my experience it seems that old foundations with embedded ring are more prone to fissures compared…

  • Wind turbines foundations grouting

    Grout is an extra high properties material that is normally used in wind farm construction just below the tower flange, above the foundation. It is a transition material, designed to have a very high fatigue resistance. All the dynamic loads need to be transferred and absorbed by the grout connecting the tower to the foundation…