TowerSE

WISDEM models the tower as a sequence of conical hollow cylinders made of steel. The tower is modeled as an elastic beam with a point mass at the top within Frame3DD. The mass and center of gravity of the rotor-nacelle-assembly together with the loads at tower top are fed to the model, which computes values of maximum stresses, natural frequencies, and buckling limits. The ratio of wall thickness to outer diameter and the rate of change of wall thickness along tower height are also computed and can be constrained during the design optimizations.

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