Computationally efficient buckling analysis of wind turbine towers

In the research reported herein a computationally efficient numerical method is introduced for the buckling analysis of tubular structures. The method uses Fourier-series approximations for the displacement functions. The strain-displacement relationship directly considers the curved geometry of the tubular shell. The implementation allows for arbitrary support conditions. In the solution developed to date four pure loading situations, uniform along the member length, are considered: normal force, bending moment, torque, and shear force. However, these four basic cases can arbitrarily be combined, as is commonly occurring in wind turbine support towers. The applied methodology results in a computational advantage compared to shell FEM, fast enough to be utilized in preliminary or code-based designs, while still maintaining much more generality and applicability compared to common analytical solutions. In this paper the method is briefly presented, then illustrated by proof-of-concept examples.

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