Optimized Structural Design of Lattice Towers for Wind Turbines

Resumo

Wind energy is a valuable renewable energy resource, and it has been recently explored in Brazil, with
a strong tendency to increase in the next decades, considering the Brazil's potential. The most common way to
explore wind energy is through wind turbines, usually designed to have maximum efficiency. The tower is an
essential part of the wind turbine design, once it defines the wind turbine efficiency and must be designed to resist
to different loadings, responding for 30% of the wind turbine cost, approximately. This work presents a structural
optimization study of steel lattice towers of wind turbines within a framework based on the strength of materials
and the finite element method for the tower's structural analysis, besides optimization techniques, to minimize the
tower's weight. Some comparisons are made with an optimized aluminum lattice tower. The minimization of the
tower's weight through the employment of optimization techniques allows a reduction of the costs with inputs,
transportation, assembling, and maintenance of the tower, especially those installed in remote areas with difficult
access, besides contributing to the study of this technology.