Date of Award

January 2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Sukhvarsh Jerath

Abstract

With the rapidly increasing energy crisis in the present world, the demand for the renewable sources of energy is increasing day by day. One of the most efficient source of renewable energy we can depend on is wind energy. Wind turbines are feasible, cost effective and durable source of wind energy which has attracted intensive scientific and societal interest. Research on wind turbine structures has mostly focused on the design and assessment of wind turbines but with the expansion of the wind turbines installation in seismically active areas (e.g, China, USA, India, Southern Europe and East Asia), recent research works are mostly related to the comprehensive seismic design of such structures.

Lack of specific guidelines for the seismic design of wind turbine structures necessiates extensive research work on the seismic behavior of wind turbine structures. In this study, seismic response on three different wind turbines of power capacities 65KW, 1 MW and 5 MW are analyzed considering the effects of different parameters such as geometry, damping and earthquakes with different Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA). For each model of wind turbine a corresponding finite element model was formed in ANSYS Workbench 16.2. All those models were loaded with a series of seismic loads from different earthquakes (Landers, El Centro, and Northridge) and the dynamic responses of those turbines were studied. For all types of wind turbines, the first mode obtained is the fundamental mode of frequency. It was observed that the geometry of the turbines, direction of the load applied, damping ratios and magnitude of applied loads, all played very important role in the study.

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