• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.5
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• pp.487-500
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• 2020

Stiffeners can be utilised to enhance the strength of thin-walled wind turbine towers in engineering practise, thus, structural performance of wind turbine towers by means of different stiffening schemes should be compared to explore the optimal structural enhancement method. In this paper two alternative stiffening methods, employing horizontal or vertical stiffeners, for steel tubular wind turbine towers have been studied. In particular, two groups of three wind turbine towers of 50m, 150m and 250m in height, stiffened by horizontal rings and vertical strips respectively, were analysed by using FEM software of ABAQUS. For each height level tower, the mass of the stiffening rings is equal to that of vertical stiffeners each other. The maximum von Mises stresses and horizontal sways of these towers with vertical stiffeners is compared with the corresponding ring-stiffened towers. A linear buckling analysis is conducted to study the buckling modes and critical buckling loads of the three height levels of tower. The buckling modes and eigenvalues of the 50m, 150m and 250m vertically stiffened towers were also compared with those of the horizontally stiffened towers. The numbers and central angles of the vertical stiffeners are considered as design variables to study the effect of vertical stiffeners on the structural performance of wind turbine towers. Following an extensive parametric study, these strengthening techniques were compared with each other and it is obtained that the use of vertical stiffeners is a more efficient approach to enhance the stability and strength of intermediate and high towers than the use of horizontal rings.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.107-108
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• 2007

Overhead transmission lines are completely exposed to the environment. This causes faults in transmission lines due to natural environmental conditions. In some cases, transmission towers are damaged by typhoons and snow, as well as sleet on the transmission lines. It takes a lot of time to repair the damaged towers. For emergency restoration purposes, steel poles are installed to temporarily supply power. Before 2003, emergency restoration steel poles were made of angled steel, which required a large number of beams, bolts, etc. In addition, the foundation of the steel pole and ground wire was constructed using excavation and burial methods, therefore it required a lot of manpower and time to construct temporary transmission lines. In September 2003, typhoon Maemi, whose maximum wind speed was 60m/s, hit Korea. 'Maemi' destroyed transmission lines in the Busan and Geojea area, causing long blackouts. To reduce the recovery time to the damaged transmission lines, self-build based emergency towers were developed. self-build based emergency towers reduced recovery time from 24 hours to 4 hours or less. However, the self-build based emergency tower had no arms, so the temporary transmission lines could only be constructed without curves in line routes. In this paper, solving these self-build based emergency tower limitations, using insulated arms(designed for use with the self-build based emergency tower), shall be explained.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.9-21
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• 2004

The present study aims at the reliability analysis of steel towers against the limit state of deflection. For this purpose tip deflection of the tower has been obtained after carrying out the dynamic analysis of the tower using modal method. This tip deflection is employed for subsequent reliability analysis. A limit state function based on serviceability criterion of deflection is derived in terms of random variables. A complete procedure of reliability computation is then presented. To study the influence of various random variables on tower reliability, sensitivity analysis has been carried out. Design points, important for probabilistic design of towers, are also located on the failure surface. Some parametric studies have also been included to obtain the results of academic and field interest.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.71 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2019

This study investigates optimum designs of steel space truss towers under seismic loading by using Jaya optimization algorithm. Turkish Earthquake Code (2007) specifications are applied on optimum designs of steel space truss towers under the seismic loading for different local site classes depending on different soil groups. The proposed novel algorithm does not have any algorithm-specific control parameters and depends only a simple revision equation. Therefore, it provides a practical solution for structural optimization problems. Optimum solutions of the different steel truss examples are carried out by selecting suitable W sections taken from American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). In order to obtain optimum solutions, a computer program is coded in MATLAB in corporated with SAP2000-OAPI (Open Application Programming Interface). The stress and displacement constraints are applied on the design problems according to AISC-ASD (Allowable Stress Design) specifications. Firstly, a benchmark truss problem is examined to see the efficiency of Jaya optimization algorithm. Then, two different multi-element truss towers previously solved with other methods without seismic loading in literature are designed by the proposed algorithm. The first space tower is a 582-member space truss with the height of 80 m and the second space tower is a 942-member space truss of about 95 m height. The minimum optimum designs obtained with this novel algorithm for the case without seismic loading are lighter than the ones previously attained in the literature studies. The results obtained in the study show that Jaya algorithm is a practical and robust optimization method for structural optimization problems. Moreover, incorporation of the seismic loading causes significant increase in the minimum design weight.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.7-22
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• 2006

The Industrial Revolution brought a variety of new forms of structure, and as a group they are usually called 'industrial architecture'. Steam engines contributed greatly to architecture with a unique structure called 'water tower' to provide water for steam engines, especially the adoption of it. This study is to examine the changes of the building materials and architectural features of the water towers of railway stations built in the early twentieth century in South Korea. This study also attempts to describe the modern features of the industrial architecture, which did not get a chance to be noticed. Through this examination on water tower, which is a part of industrial architecture with sheer integration of function and pure geometric form, we would like to find the meaning of modern architecture in Korea. As we can see in the Korean oldest railway station water tower constructed in masonry at Yeonsan Station in 1911, early water towers were divided into the masonry machine room and the steel water tank. However, the masonry structure was soon turned into concrete structure with its formal features maintained as it was. The steel water tank was also replaced with concrete structure. As a result, while its basic structure remained, concrete structure had substituted for the every components of water tower. Concrete-built water towers were the high-tech architecture of that time and the most perfect structures built in concrete. Nevertheless, the perfection of the water tower form and the technology it attained were not transferred to other modern and contemporary architecture in South Korea. Since the subject to railway station water towers was the Japanese government, and steam engines were replaced with diesels in the midst of a complicated domestic situation after the independence, the need for water towers in railway stations disappeared and therefore, it became ignored and was difficult to look over the architectural features and values of early railway station water towers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2007

As girders and towers in cable-stayed bridges are subject to bending moments as well as axial forces, the conventional load rating equation, which considers only the single force effect, cannot be used to evaluate the rating factors of cable-stayed bridges. The load rating equation for components in cable-stayed bridges is not currently established yet. In this paper, we propose load rating equations for girders and towers in cable-stayed bridges using the interaction equations for beam-column members. Moving load analyses were performed for the cases of a maximum axial compressive force, maximum positive moment and maximum negative moment for each component in cable-stayed bridges and detailed procedures to apply proposed equations were presented. The Dolsan Grand Bridge was used to verify the validity of proposed equations. The conventional load rating equation overestimates rating factors of girders and towers in the Dolsan Grand Bridge, whereas proposed equations properly reflect the axial-flexural interaction behaviour of girders and towers in cable-stayed bridges.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.681-695
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• 2021

Many existing transmission or communication towers designed several decades ago have undergone nonreversible performance degradation, making it hardly meet the additional requirements from upgrades in wind load design codes and extra services of electricity and communication. Therefore, a new-type non-destructive reinforcement method was proposed to reduce the on-site operation of drilling and welding for improving the quality and efficiency of reinforcement. Six built-up steel angle members were tested under compression to examine the reinforcement performance. Subsequently, the cyclic loading test was conducted on a pair of steel angle tower sub-structures to investigate the reinforcement effect, and a simplified prediction method was finally established for calculating the buckling bearing capacity of those new-type retrofitted built-up steel angles. The results indicates that: no apparent difference exists in the initial stiffness for the built-up specimens compared to the unreinforced steel angles; retrofitting the steel angles by single-bolt clamps can guarantee a relatively reasonable reinforcement effect and is suggested for the reduced additional weight and higher construction efficiency; for the substructure test, the latticed substructure retrofitted by the proposed reinforcement method significantly improves the lateral stiffness, the non-deformability and energy dissipation capacity; moreover, an apparent pinching behavior exists in the hysteretic loops, and there is no obvious yield plateau in the skeleton curves; finally, the accuracy validation result indicates that the proposed theoretical model achieves a reasonable agreement with the test results. Accordingly, this study can provide valuable references for the design and application of the non-destructive upgrading project of steel angle towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.353-367
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• 2015

As concrete wind-turbine towers are increasingly being used in wind-farm construction, there is a growing need to understand the behavior of concrete wind-turbine towers. In particular, experimental evaluations of concrete wind-turbine towers are necessary to demonstrate the dynamic characteristics and load-carrying capacity of such towers. This paper describes a model test of a prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower that examines the dynamic characteristics and load-carrying performance of the tower. Additionally, a numerical model is presented and used to verify the design approach. The test results indicate that the first natural frequency of the prestressed concrete wind turbine tower is 0.395 Hz which lies between frequencies 1P and 3P (0.25-0.51 Hz). The damper ratio is 3.3%. The maximum concrete compression stresses are less than the concrete design compression strength, the maximum tensile stresses are less than zero and the prestressed strand stresses are less than the design strength under both the serviceability and ultimate limit state loads. The maximum displacement of the tower top are 331 mm and 648 mm for the serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state, respectively, which is less than L/100 = 1000 mm. Compared with traditional tall wind-turbine steel towers, the prestressed concrete tower has better material damping properties, potential lower maintenance cost, and lower construction costs. Thus, the prestressed concrete wind-turbine tower could be an innovative engineering solution for multi-megawatt wind turbine towers, in particular those that are taller than 100 m.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

The Pertamina Energy Tower (PET) and Manhattan West North Tower (MWNT) are two supertall towers recently designed and engineered by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The structural system for both buildings consists of an interior reinforced concrete core and a perimeter moment frame system, which is primarily structural steel. As is typical for tall towers with both concrete and steel elements, staged construction analysis was performed in order to account for the long term effects of creep and shrinkage, which result in differential shortening between the interior concrete core and steel perimeter frame. The particular design of each tower represents two extremes of behavior; PET has a robust connection between the perimeter and core in the form of three sets of outriggers, while the perimeter columns of MWNT do not reach the ground, but are transferred to the core above the base. This paper will present a comparison of the techniques used during the analysis and construction stages of the design process with the goal of understanding the differences in structural behavior of these two building systems in response to the long term effects of creep and shrinkage. This paper will also discuss the design and construction techniques implemented in order to minimize the differential shortening between the interior and exterior over the lifespan of these towers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2018

Experimental investigations have revealed significant mismatches between analytical estimates and experimentally measured deflections of transmission towers. These are attributed to bolt slip and joint flexibility. This study focuses on effects of joint flexibility on tower deflections and proposes criterions for permissible deflection limits based on the stresses in joints. The objective has been framed given that guidelines are not available in the codes of practices for transmission towers with regard to the permissible limits of deflection. The analysis procedure is geometric and material nonlinear with consideration of joint flexibility in the form of extension or contraction of the cover plates. The deflections due to bolt slip are included in the study by scaling up the deflections obtained from analysis by a factor. Using the results of the analysis, deflection limits for the towers are proposed by limiting the stresses in the joints. The obtained limits are then applied to a new full scale tower to demonstrate the application of the current study.