Design of hyper tall onshore wind turbine towers
HYPER TOWER is a very promising project that will lead to a radical increase in the wind turbine tower height and consequently to an increase in the energy potential harvested by wind structures. The project reaches its aims of constructing taller, more robust and economical towers by realizing 6 work packages that are formulated and developed in 2 years. In approaching the ""20-20-20"" targets, more and more energy has to come from sustainable energy sources and since ""The taller the wind tower is, the greener the energy is"", a constant trend of taller wind energy structures is observed. The civil engineers' challenge of constructing taller structures, with heavier machinery hanging at greater heights has led to the need of evolution of a new tower configuration that can reassure the structure's robustness along with a feasible construction schedule.
Hyper Tower proposes the elaboration of a new-age tower cross-section and construction methodology, which are elaborated within the project's work packages. Assessment of existing tower configuration is performed, the proposal of a new-age tower section is elaborated, numerical and experimental results are assessed and compared to traditional tower configuration results and the final tower configuration is formulated.