Sandwichtürme für Windenergieanlagen mit höherfesten Stahl- und Verbundwerkstoffen

Sandwichtowers for wind turbines with high strength steel and core materials.

The performance and the dimensions of wind energy converters have been increased significantly within the last few years. Thus, the requirements on tower constructions will also increase following the development of bigger turbines. Usually tubular steel and pre-stressed concrete towers are chosen as support structures for wind turbines. The structural design of tubular steel towers is mainly driven by ultimate and fatigue limit state. Especially shell buckling leads to large dimensions and thicknesses for the steel sections. Therefore, a new kind of tower, the so called sandwichtower, has been developed as an alternative solution with the aim of increasing the shell stability. The sandwich tower consists of an inner and outer steel shell which are bonded together with a core material between them. That works as a full space stiffener. As a result of the investigations a combination of steel and sandwich-section is favoured where the sandwich is only planned for the lower tower section to get higher stability simultaneously with thinner shells. Therefore, the effective welding time can be decreased when the shells are made of high strength steels. Especially for tower sections with D >4.3 m a new fabrication concept with longitudinal partial shells is developed to offer the transportation onshore and to minimize the number of critical circumferential welds. Furthermore, a new kind of connection between the tower sections is presented without bolted ring flanges.