Analysis of Load on the Hybrid Tower and Cost Effectiveness of the Wind Turbine

Abstract With the development of wind industry, rated power of the wind turbine also increases gradually. Accordingly, size of the wind turbine tower is becoming larger. Tower base diameter of the 2MW wind turbine is about 4m. Larger tower is expected for 4MW or 5MW turbines. Due to limitation of transportation, new type of tower with smooth transportation and effective cost is needed. In this work, a hybrid tower consisting of steel and concrete is designed and analyzed. The optimum ratio of steel and concrete of the hybrid tower is calculated as well as the thickness of the concrete part. Different FE analysis including modalanalysis, buckling analysis and static analysis are performed to check the design of hybrid tower comparing with the steel tower. Redesign is also expected after various analyses. Key words Hybrid tower(하이브리드 타워), Wind turbine tower(풍력발전기 타워), Steel-co ncrete(스틸-콘크리트), Design load case(설계하중조건), Extreme load(극한하중) (접수일 2010. 12. 1, 게재확정일 2010. 12. 17) * 포항공과대학교 풍력특성화대학원 석사과정