Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Design optimisation of wind turbine towers with reliability-based calibration of partial safety factors

Al-Sanad, Shaikha; Parol, Jafarali; Wang, Lin; Kolios, Athanasios

Design optimisation of wind turbine towers with reliability-based calibration of partial safety factors Thumbnail


Authors

Shaikha Al-Sanad

Jafarali Parol

LIN WANG LIN.WANG1@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Assistant Professor

Athanasios Kolios



Abstract


Having an optimal design of the wind turbine tower, with a minimum mass (cost) while fulfilling multiple design constraints, plays an important role in ensuring an economic and safe design of the wind turbine. During the design of wind turbine towers, partial safety factors (PSFs) are currently commonly used to account for the uncertainties in the loads and material properties due to its easy implementation. The values of PSFs given in design standard are generic and are not derived for a specific design. For a site-specific design of wind turbine towers, the details of the load parameters, such as the type of distributions and the coefficient of variation, can be obtained through the condition monitoring system. With these information, the PSFs can be calibrated based on the reliability method, meeting the target reliability index and avoiding over or under engineering of wind turbine tower structures. In this work, a parametric finite element analysis model is integrated with a genetic algorithm to develop a structural optimisation model of wind turbine towers. The optimisation framework minimises the tower mass under multiple design constraints. The optimisation model has been applied to a representative 2.0 MW onshore wind turbine tower. PSFs are calibrated on the basis of reliability. The optimal tower design with calibrated PSFs is compared against the design with un-calibrated PSFs. Results indicate that the tower design with calibrated PSFs achieves a mass reduction of 2.9% in comparison to the design with un-calibrated PSFs.

Citation

Al-Sanad, S., Parol, J., Wang, L., & Kolios, A. (2023). Design optimisation of wind turbine towers with reliability-based calibration of partial safety factors. Energy Reports, 9, 2548-2556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2023.01.090

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 19, 2023
Online Publication Date Jan 30, 2023
Publication Date 2023-12
Deposit Date Nov 30, 2023
Publicly Available Date Nov 30, 2023
Journal Energy Reports
Electronic ISSN 2352-4847
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 9
Pages 2548-2556
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2023.01.090
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/17071578

Files





You might also like



Downloadable Citations