8-MW wind turbine tower computational shell buckling benchmark. Part 1: An international ‘round-robin’ exercise

Adam J. Sadowski, Marc Seidel, Hussain Al-Lawati, Esmaeil Azizi, Hagen Balscheit, Manuela Böhm, Lei Chen, Ingmar van Dijk, Cornelia Doerich-Stavridis, Oluwole Kunle Fajuyitan, Achilleas Filippidis, Astrid Winther Fischer, Claas Fischer, Simos Gerasimidis, Hassan Karampour, Lijithan Kathirkamanathan, Frithjof Marten, Yasuko Mihara, Shashank Mishra, Volodymyr SakharovAmela Shahini, Saravanan Subramanian, Cem Topkaya, Heinz Norbert Ronald Wagner, Jianze Wang, Jie Wang, Kshitij Kumar Yadav, Xiang Yun, Pan Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

An assessment of the elastic-plastic buckling limit state for multi-strake wind turbine support towers poses a particular challenge for the modern finite element analyst, who must competently navigate numerous modelling choices related to the tug-of-war between meshing and computational cost, the use of solvers that are robust to highly nonlinear behaviour, the potential for multiple near-simultaneously critical failure locations, the complex issue of imperfection sensitivity and finally the interpretation of the data into a safe and economic design. This paper reports on an international ‘round-robin’ exercise conducted in 2022 aiming to take stock of the computational shell buckling expertise around the world which attracted 29 submissions. Participants were asked to perform analyses of increasing complexity on a standardised benchmark of an 8-MW multi-strake steel wind turbine support tower segment, from a linear elastic stress analysis to a linear bifurcation analysis to a geometrically and materially nonlinear buckling analysis with imperfections. The results are a showcase of the significant shell buckling expertise now available in both industry and academia. This paper is the first of a pair. The second paper presents a detailed reference solution to the benchmark, including an illustration of the Eurocode-compliant calibration of two important imperfection forms.

Original languageEnglish
Article number107124
JournalEngineering Failure Analysis
Volume148
Early online date20 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

The data that has been used is confidential

Keywords

  • Buckling
  • EN 1993-1-6
  • Finite element analysis
  • GMNIA
  • LBA-MNA
  • Plastic collapse
  • Reference Resistance Design
  • Round-robin
  • Wind turbine support tower

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering

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