Uma contribuição ao projeto de fundações de torres de turbinas eólicas

Abstract

This work outlines the main aspects and evaluate the most relevant results from a study carried out with the proposal to contribute to the improvement of the design of conventional cap-piles foundations, intended particularly to wind turbine towers. The feasibility of the optimized foundation, which makes use of micropiles, is evaluated by means of comparisons – in terms of quantities of materials employed in construction and in terms of the rotational and transverse stiffnesses – with the most usual type of foundations for these towers, in which helix and root piles are used. The 3D modelling of the wind turbine tower and its foundation was done with the aid of a structural analysis software, along with a parametric analysis of the foundation models, which comprises 3 different types of piles employed in the cap-piles foundations : helix and root piles, which are the most employed in Brazil, and micropiles, yet very little employed in the country. Some of the variables used in the parametric analysis are the concrete pile cap diameter and height, the pile depth and its battering angle, the number of piles and their layout, the soil bearing capacity, the piles’ strength, the transverse and rotational stiffnesses of the cap-pile foundation and consequent vibration frequencies associated to the lateral bending modes of the tower structure-turbine on its cap-pile foundation.