Imperial College London
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Dr Adam Jan Sadowski

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 3065a.sadowski Website

 
 
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Location

 

318Skempton BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Sadowski:2016:10.1002/eqe.2785,
author = {Sadowski, AJ and Camara, A and Malaga, Chuquitaype C and Dai, K},
doi = {10.1002/eqe.2785},
journal = {Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics},
pages = {201--219},
title = {Seismic analysis of a tall metal wind turbine support tower with realistic geometric imperfections},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eqe.2785},
volume = {46},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The global growth in wind energy suggests that wind farms will increasingly bedeployed in seismically active regions, with large arrays of similarly-designedstructures potentially at risk of simultaneous failure under a major earthquake. Windturbine support towers are often constructed as thin-walled metal shell structures, wellknownfor their imperfection sensitivity, and are susceptible to sudden buckling failureunder compressive axial loading.This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the seismic response of a 1.5 MWwind turbine steel support tower modelled as a near-cylindrical shell structure withrealistic axisymmetric weld depression imperfections. A selection of twentyrepresentative earthquake ground motion records, ten ‘near-fault’ and ten ‘far-field’,was applied and the aggregate seismic response explored using lateral drifts and totalplastic energy dissipation during the earthquake as structural demand parameters.The tower was found to exhibit high stiffness, though global collapse may occur soonafter the elastic limit is exceeded through the development of a highly unstable plastichinge under seismic excitations. Realistic imperfections were found to have asignificant effect on the intensities of ground accelerations at which damage initiatesand on the failure location, but only a small effect on the vibration properties and theresponse prior to damage. Including vertical accelerations similarly had a limited effecton the elastic response, but potentially shifts the location of the plastic hinge to a moreslender and therefore weaker part of the tower. The aggregate response was found to besignificantly more damaging under near-fault earthquakes with pulse-like effects andlarge vertical accelerations than far-field earthquakes without these aspects.
AU  - Sadowski,AJ
AU  - Camara,A
AU  - Malaga,Chuquitaype C
AU  - Dai,K
DO  - 10.1002/eqe.2785
EP  - 219
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 1096-9845
SP  - 201
TI  - Seismic analysis of a tall metal wind turbine support tower with realistic geometric imperfections
T2  - Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/eqe.2785
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/33702
VL  - 46
ER  -
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