research direction

[wj1546]

I would like to conduct some research on the tower section of a 15MW wind turbine. Do you have any suggestions for research directions

[jjonkman]

Can you provide more information on your background and interests?

One topic that often comes up in tower design for floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) of this size is the switch from soft-stiff to stiff-stiff design. Where is the design breakpoint for different FOWT? What is impact on tower mass/cost? Can you innovate the tower design to allow soft-stiff designs to work for larger turbines?

[wj1546]

Dear Joe, thank you for your suggestion. Regarding the breakpoint design of the tower, can Open Fast now simulate by modifying the breakpoint position of the tower?

[jjonkman]

Dear @wj1546,

By "breakpoint", I'm referring to when the design needs to switch from soft-stiff to stiff-stiff tower design. This is not a simulation feature of OpenFAST. I'm not referring to actual damage to the tower.

Best regards,

[wj1546]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. What I want to express is that the tower is composed of several sections, and the length and stiffness of these sections are different. When I assume that some sections are a whole (no longer connected by flanges), or split one section into two sections (requiring flange connection), will this affect the stability of the wind turbine? Can OpenFast perform a corresponding simulation?

[jjonkman]

I would say it is common for a tower to be manufactured in different sections, so, that is not generally a problem.

OpenFAST will treat the tower as a beam, where structural details such as flanges are not directly considered. That said, you can output from OpenFAST the sectional loads (reaction forces, moments) at different stations along the tower and you can pass these to a finite-element analysis (FEA) tool to calculate local stress/strain based on the structural details.

Best regards,

[wj1546]

Thank you very much for your patient reply. I understand now