Wind turbine tower design
Proven design, review and analysis services help you to cost-effectively optimize your wind turbine tower design
Wind power has made massive strides in cutting costs over recent decades and is now a cost-competitive renewable energy source. To further reduce wind project lifecycle costs, larger wind turbines are being designed requiring taller, cost-effective towers.
Design, review and analysis to cut LCoE for wind power
DNV offers a portfolio of design, review and analysis services to help you optimize your tower designs for your specific requirements and deliver cost-effective wind power.
Integrated design
DNV’s fully integrated design approach combines load calculations with turbine controller and tower design to deliver an optimized tower design that minimizes mass and fabrication costs for your specific project requirements. We continue to develop state-of-the-art analysis methods in each of the three disciplines and these advanced analysis approaches are used to achieve the optimal tower design for any requirements. In offshore support structure design, we can also carry out the design of the monopile, jacket or floater structures together with the tower design, to ensure the best overall design.
Customer design review
Do you already have your own tower design? Utilizing a host of expertise and calculation methods which we routinely apply in design services, we can carry out a fully independent review of your tower design to ensure it is properly optimized for minimum mass and that strength calculations are correctly applied following latest design standards. This gives you and your stakeholders confidence that your tower design is fully fit for purpose.
Intermediate analysis options
We strive to offer solutions that meet your unique requirements. For example, you may wish to carry out load’s calculations and/or a controller design while we conduct the tower design. Alternatively, you may be interested to have a review of your tower design and then choose whether to include an independent strength assessment of the tower. Whatever your requirements, we will work with you to support and deliver what you require.
Structural analysis: Advanced buckling analysis methods
Various options exist for tower buckling assessments to be undertaken, each ranging in complexity and implicit conservatism. We have developed methods to efficiently apply the LBA-MNA method to tower design and optimization where significant mass savings have been demonstrated compared to the use of traditional design analysis methods. Alternatively, we can review your existing towers to assess whether this method may provide mass-saving benefits.
In certain circumstances, it may be necessary to adopt more complex analysis using the GMNIA approach. This method could be used to carry out detailed buckling strength assessment of door openings, confirm fabricated tower strength following damage or discover if fabrication tolerances meet required design tolerance limits.
Examples of other DNV tower services
Root cause analysis services
Failure analysis is a structured approach used to determine the immediate cause of a failure and help identify contributing factors. We have significant experience in applying both route cause analyses (RCA) and apparent cause analyses (ACA) in the context of wind turbine towers.
Vortex-induced vibration analysis
Most tower designs will be assessed for each stage of tower construction using vortex-induced vibrations (VIV). In addition to offering comprehensive assessments of VIV for both first and second tower modes, we are able to support you in reviewing appropriate VIV mitigation measures, such as the use of tuned mass dampers (TMD) and other alternatives.
A two-way partnership
DNV has over 20 years’ in-depth experience in wind turbine engineering. In that time, we have developed tower designs up to 160 metres in height for onshore projects. We have also carried out integrated tower designs for offshore towers, using monopile, jacket and floating sub-structures. Based on our wealth of tower design and analysis experience, we have developed a number of tools including the commercial tool, Tower.Architect which streamlines and automates tower design processes following latest standards and guidelines.
We bring all this expertise and insight to our tower design services, building a two-way relationship that allows your teams to learn valuable skills and analyses for future projects.
