Neue innovative Stahlprofilformen für Gittermasttürme - Ergebnisse aus Forschung und Anwendung

New and innovative steel profiles for lattice towers - Results from research and application.

Nowadays, lattice towers are applied worldwide in telecommunication, transmission and wind turbine towers. Wind power stations with lattice towers have nearly been totally replaced by tube towers, but currently undergo a renaissance. The reason is the cost efficient solution for the achievement of big heights, which allow the exploitation of higher wind speeds. In this way, the degree of efficiency and the turbine output are improved with a smaller disk area. In addition, the fundaments of lattice towers are more economic in their execution than those of tube towers. The application of bolted angle profiles simplifies the transport and the erection of lattice towers in rough terrain. Moreover, the hot dip galvanization process of the angles assures a long-lasting corrosion protection without extra effort. Newly developed heavy angle profiles using high strength steel allow an even more economic and sustainable design of lattice towers, which will become a competitive solution in future. In this paper, the newly developed angles L300 of ArcelorMittal using high strength steel are presented. Additionally, appropriate reduction curves according to EC 3 are determined for the angles. Finally the potential of the new angles in lattice towers is highlighted in a case study.