Study On The Design Methods Of Tall Wind Turbine Foundation (a Case Of Adama I Wind Farm)

Wind energy has been deemed an appropriate means of diversifying Ethiopia’srnenergy mix while simultaneously addressing the deficit in electricity supply which therncountry faces. The first wind farm in Ethiopia is Adama I wind farm, which generatesrna 51MW of energy using 34 sets of wind turbine generators. The foundationrnsupporting the wind turbine generators is designed assuming the load encounteredrnto be static; however, wind turbine structures are inherently dynamic structures, andrnthe design of foundations for resistance of dynamic loading requires a different designrnapproach other than static approach. Both the static and dynamic foundation designrnapproach for wind turbine structure are studied in this project. rnWhen designing the foundation taking into account the dynamic nature of thernstructure, the final design resulted in the circular gravity base foundation with arnbottom diameter of 13.2 m, and depth of 3m. The reduction in dimensions of onernparticular foundation is interpreted by the change in volume of concrete, whichrnshowed a decrement of 124 mrn3 rnwhen compared with the existing typical foundationrnin Adama I wind farm. rnMoreover, the foundation design to support all the 31 turbines is identical across 5kmrnstretch of wind farm land, and didn’t cater to the local soil or rock condition. In reality,rnthe ground condition is different across the wind farm land; as result, the effect ofrnusing different bearing capacity values on foundation dimension is also explored. rnThe final design resulted in the circular gravity base foundation with a bottomrndiameter of 14 m, and depth of 2.5 m for all the bearing capacity used in the study.rnThe reduction in dimensions of one particular foundation is interpreted by the volumernof concrete, volume of backfill. The volume of the concrete showed 115 mrn3 rndecrement;rnthe backfill material decreased by 1,137 mrn3rn when compared with the existingrnfoundation in Adama I wind farm. The results of this part of study show that thernincreasing the bearing capacity had negligible contribution in reducing therndimensions of the foundation. rnThis project concludes that the bearing capacity is not the major limiting factor whenrndesigning a foundation for the Adama I wind farm. The stability against overturningrnis the most critical criteria for both the static and dynamic approaches. Furthermore,rnwhen designing wind turbine foundation taking into consideration the soil structurerninteraction and dynamic nature of the wind turbine generators, the foundationrndimension showed a decrement, which emphasizes the static approach to foundationrndesign is conservative.

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