Wind Turbine Tower Structural and Cost Optimisation within Acceptable Structural Integrity

As the demand for cleaner-greener energy surges owing to more nations adopting Net Zero Emission by 2050, wind turbine (WT) technology is increasingly poised as one of the technologies to match the demand. Capacity building in the development of cost-effective WT tower with improved reliability and safety has become critical to delivering Net Zero mandate. This research demonstrates implementation of Taguchi Design of Experiment (DoE) in conjunction with Signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) to optimise both structural design parameters and material cost of a 90 m tower of a standard 5 MW WT tower subjected to adverse wind conditions. Nine Computer Aided Design tower models are generated from Taguchi design at constant shell volume. Deflection, stress and buckling responses of the models to applied environmental loads are simulated using ANSYS mechanical package. Results are validated with analytical method. Responses of the models are compared with the standard model. Model 1, made of steel grade S275, 95 mm wall thickness and 0.45 top-to-bottom diameter ratio, is found optimal. It deflects 9.3% less, accumulates 7.62% less stress, shows higher resistance to buckling and costs 8.2% less. The methodology adopted in this work is well suited to preliminary design stages, where design flexibility is high and cost decisions are most influential, and it contributes to capacity building in wind turbine tower technology to support technological advancement towards Net Zero.