• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.209-215
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• 2010

In this study, seismic response analyses of a MW class wind-turbine have been conducted considering applied wind-loads using advanced computational method based on CFD and FEM. Typical lateral and vertical acceleration levels induced by earthquake is also considered herein. Practical numerical method for seismic response analysis of wind-turbine tower models are presented in the time-domain and the effects of wind load and seismic excitation for responses are compared to each other. It is importantly shown that possible earthquake effect during typical operating conditions should be taken into account in the design of huge wind-turbine tower systems because of its enormous inertia characteristics for induced maximum stress level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2018

The seismic response, the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of an offshore wind turbine with twisted tripod substructure subject to various pile-ground interactions are discussed in this paper. The acceleration responses of the tower head by four historical earthquakes are presented as the seismic response, while the other loads are assumed as ambient loads. For the pile-ground interactions, the fixed, linear and nonlinear models are employed to simulate the interactions and the p-y, t-z and Q-z curves are utilized for the linear and nonlinear models. The curves are designed for stiff, medium and soft clays, and thus, the seven types of the pile-ground interactions are used to compare the seismic response, the acceleration of the tower head. The mode shapes are similar to each other for all types of pile-ground interactions. The natural frequencies, however, are almost same for the three clay types of the linear model, while the natural frequency of the fixed support model is quite different from that of the linear interaction model. The wind turbine with the fixed support model has the biggest magnitude of acceleration. In addition, the nonlinear model is more sensitive to the stiffness of clay than the linear pile-ground interaction model.

• Special Issue of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.22-30
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• 2005

Sloshing loads, produced by the violent liquid free-surface motions inside the cargo tank have become an important design parameter in ship building industry since there have been demands for the increased sizes of the cargo containment system of LNG carriers. In this study, sloshing impact pressure acting on the shell of the spherical cargo tank of an LNG carrier as well as dynamic pressure and flow behavior around the pump tower located at the center of the tank have been calculated. Comparative numerical sloshing simulations for a spherical LNG tank using 2-D LR.FLUIDS which is based on the finite difference method and 3-D MSC.DYTRAN which is capable of calculating nonlinear fluid-structure interaction have been carried out. A method of calculating sloshing-induced dynamic loads and the subsequent structural strength analysis for pump tower of a spherical LNG carrier using MSC. DYTRAN and MSC.NASTRAN have been presented.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.663-678
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• 2020

Robust semi-active vibration control of wind turbines using tuned mass dampers (TMDs) is a promising technique. This study investigates a 1.5 megawatt wind turbine controlled by eight different types of tuned mass damper systems of equal mass: a passive TMD, a semi-active varying-spring TMD, a semi-active varying-damper TMD, a semi-active varying-damper-and-spring TMD, as well as these four damper systems paired with an additional smaller passive TMD near the mid-point of the tower. The mechanism and controllers for each of these TMD systems are explained, such as employing magnetorheological dampers for the varying-damper TMD cases. The turbine is modelled as a lumped-mass 3D finite element model. The uncontrolled and controlled turbines are subjected to loading and operational cases including service wind loads on operational turbines, seismic loading with service wind on operational turbines, and high-intensity storm wind loads on parked turbines. The displacement and acceleration responses of the tower at the first and second mode shape maxima were used as the performance indicators. Ultimately, it was found that while all the semi-active TMD systems outperformed the passive systems, it was the semi-active varying-damper-and-spring system that was found to be the most effective overall - capable of controlling vibrations about as effectively with only half the mass as a passive TMD. It was also shown that by reducing the mass of the TMD and adding a second smaller TMD below, the vibrations near the mid-point could be greatly reduced at the cost of slightly increased vibrations at the tower top.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.11-27
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• 2018

The straight-cone steel cooling tower is a novel type of structure, which has a distinct aerodynamic distribution on the internal surface of the tower cylinder compared with conventional hyperbolic concrete cooling towers. Especially in the extreme weather conditions of strong wind and heavy rain, heavy rain also has a direct impact on aerodynamic force on the internal surface and changes the turbulence effect of pulsating wind, but existing studies mainly focus on the impact effect brought by wind-driven rain to structure surface. In addition, for the indirect air cooled cooling tower, different additional ventilation rate of shutters produces a considerable interference to air movement inside the tower and also to the action mechanism of loads. To solve the problem, a straight-cone steel cooling towerstanding 189 m high and currently being constructed is taken as the research object in this study. The algorithm for two-way coupling between wind and rain is adopted. Simulation of wind field and raindrops is performed with continuous phase and discrete phase models, respectively, under the general principles of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Firstly, the rule of influence of 9 combinations of wind sped and rainfall intensity on flow field mechanism, the volume of wind-driven rain, additional action force of raindrops and equivalent internal pressure coefficient of the tower cylinder is analyzed. On this basis, the internal pressures of the cooling tower under the most unfavorable working condition are compared between four ventilation rates of shutters (0%, 15%, 30% and 100%). The results show that the 3D effect of equivalent internal pressure coefficient is the most significant when considering two-way coupling between wind and rain. Additional load imposed by raindrops on the internal surface of the tower accounts for an extremely small proportion of total wind load, the maximum being only 0.245%. This occurs under the combination of 20 m/s wind velocity and 200 mm/h rainfall intensity. Ventilation rate of shutters not only changes the air movement inside the tower, but also affects the accumulated amount and distribution of raindrops on the internal surface.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2014

For simple and accurate analysis for behaviors of multi-span suspension bridges which are expected to be frequently constructed as strait-crossing bridges, the deflection theory as the peculiar theory of a suspension bridge can be applied. This paper performs a structural analysis for four-span suspension bridges using the deflection theory. Simply-supported beams with tension are used for girders and the deflections of the beams due to the vertical loads and moments at supports are calculated. The calculation is performed iteratively until the deflections satisfy the compatibility equations of cables. The results of the deflection theory analysis considering tower rigidity are compared with those of the finite element analysis for verification. Importance of the tower rigidity for four-span suspension bridges is confirmed using various compatibility equations of the cable due to variation of the constraint conditions between main cable and top of towers. In addition, the simple parametric analysis for variation of the center tower rigidity is performed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.79-100
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• 2017

The use of wind energy resources is developing rapidly in recent decades. There is an increasing number of wind farms in high wind-velocity areas such as the Pacific Rim regions. Wind turbine towers are vulnerable to tropical cyclones and tower failures have been reported in an increasing number in these regions. Existing post-disaster failure case studies were mostly performed through forensic investigations and there are few numerical studies that address the collapse mode simulation of wind turbine towers under strong wind loads. In this paper, the wind-induced failure analysis of a conventional 65 m hub high 1.5-MW wind turbine was carried out by means of nonlinear response time-history analyses in a detailed finite element model of the structure. The wind loading was generated based on the wind field parameters adapted from the cyclone boundary layer flow. The analysis results indicate that this particular tower fails due to the formation of a full-section plastic hinge at locations that are consistent with those reported from field investigations, which suggests the validity of the proposed numerical analysis in the assessment of the performance of wind-farms under cyclonic winds. Furthermore, the numerical simulation allows to distinguish different failure stages before the dynamic collapse occurs in the proposed wind turbine tower, opening the door to future research on the control of these intermediate collapse phases.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1115-1144
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• 2015

Current climate conditions along with advances in technology make further design and verification methods for structural strength and reliability of wind turbine towers imperative. Along with the growing interest for "green" energy, the wind energy sector has been developed tremendously the past decades. To this end, the improvement of wind turbine towers in terms of structural detailing and performance result in more efficient, durable and robust structures that facilitate their wider application, thus leading to energy harvesting increase. The wind tower industry is set to expand to greater heights than before and tapered steel towers with a circular cross-section are widely used as more capable of carrying heavier loads. The present study focuses on the improvement of the structural response of steel wind turbine towers, by means of internal stiffening. A thorough investigation of the contribution of stiffening rings to the overall structural behavior of the tower is being carried out. These stiffening rings are placed along the tower height to reduce local buckling phenomena, thus increasing the buckling strength of steel wind energy towers and leading the structure to a behavior closer to the one provided by the beam theory. Additionally to ring stiffeners, vertical stiffening schemes are studied to eliminate the presence of short wavelength buckles due to bending. For the purposes of this research, finite element analysis is applied in order to describe and predict in an accurate way the structural response of a model tower stiffened by internal stiffeners. Moreover, a parametric study is being performed in order to investigate the effect of the stiffeners' number to the functionality of the aforementioned stiffening systems and the improved structural behavior of the overall wind converter.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2012

New generation of tall and complex buildings systems are now introduced that are reflective of the latest development in materials, design, sustainability, construction, and IT technologies. While the complexity in design is being overcome by the availability and advances in structural analysis tools and readily advanced software, the design of these buildings are still reliant on minimum code requirements that yet to be validated in full scale. The involvement of the author in the design and construction planning of Burj Khalifa since its inception until its completion prompted the author to conceptually develop an extensive survey and real-time structural health monitoring program to validate all the fundamental assumptions mad for the design and construction planning of the tower. The Burj Khalifa Project is the tallest structure ever built by man; the tower is 828 meters tall and comprises of 162 floors above grade and 3 basement levels. Early integration of aerodynamic shaping and wind engineering played a major role in the architectural massing and design of this multi-use tower, where mitigating and taming the dynamic wind effects was one of the most important design criteria established at the onset of the project design. Understanding the structural and foundation system behaviors of the tower are the key fundamental drivers for the development and execution of a state-of-the-art survey and structural health monitoring (SHM) programs. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to discuss the execution of the survey and real-time structural health monitoring programs to confirm the structural behavioral response of the tower during construction stage and during its service life; the monitoring programs included 1) monitoring the tower's foundation system, 2) monitoring the foundation settlement, 3) measuring the strains of the tower vertical elements, 4) measuring the wall and column vertical shortening due to elastic, shrinkage and creep effects, 5) measuring the lateral displacement of the tower under its own gravity loads (including asymmetrical effects) resulting from immediate elastic and long term creep effects, 6) measuring the building lateral movements and dynamic characteristic in real time during construction, 7) measuring the building displacements, accelerations, dynamic characteristics, and structural behavior in real time under building permanent conditions, 8) and monitoring the Pinnacle dynamic behavior and fatigue characteristics. This extensive SHM program has resulted in extensive insight into the structural response of the tower, allowed control the construction process, allowed for the evaluation of the structural response in effective and immediate manner and it allowed for immediate correlation between the measured and the predicted behavior. The survey and SHM programs developed for Burj Khalifa will with no doubt pioneer the use of new survey techniques and the execution of new SHM program concepts as part of the fundamental design of building structures. Moreover, this survey and SHM programs will be benchmarked as a model for the development of future generation of SHM programs for all critical and essential facilities, however, but with much improved devices and technologies, which are now being considered by the author for another tall and complex building development, that is presently under construction.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

This paper presents a method of estimation of fatigue demands on connection bolts of tubular steel wind turbine towers. The presented method relies on numerical simulation of aerodynamic loads and structural behavior of bolted connections modeled using finite element method. Variability of wind parameters is represented by a set of values derived from their probability densities, which are adjusted based on field measurements. Numerically generated stress time-series show agreement with the measurements from strain gauges inside bolts, in terms of power spectra and the resulting damage. Position of each bolt has a determining effect on its fatigue damage. The proposed framework for fatigue life estimation represents the complexities in loading and local behavior of the structure. On the other hand, the developed procedure is computationally efficient since it requires a limited number of simulations for statistically representing the wind variations.