WIND TOWERS
Advantages
Concrete tower solutions are adaptable and durable and offer long life performance with minimum maintenance. Nowadays towers are realized using either precast or in-situ post tensioned concrete, rather than steel.
Taller wind towers need greater structural strength and stiffness to carry both the increased turbine weight and bending forces from wind action on the rotors and the tower and also to avoid damaging resonance. The industry is moving towards taller and more slender structures, that can be built quickly and can so become more cost-effective; in this view the role of PT system can play a central role in the development of engineered solutions dedicated to this specific field.
The TENSA technologies that can be applied in wind towers are meant to:
- Avoid deflections and in general to stabilize the tower against dynamic actions (i.e. wind), (post tensioning)
- Increase concrete and steel structure performances by strengthening them and, consequently, allowing for high and thin structures to be reached (post tensioning and stay cables)
Towers are currently built with reinforced concrete, steel or composite structures. Post tensioning is a highly efficient structural reinforcement system that offers many benefits in a wide range of construction, repair and rehabilitation applications.
The strand technology can be used for cable stayed application - stays are used to connect the tower to the ground, allowing a considerable increase of the ration between tower height and its cross section.
Wind towers are often reinforced with post tensioning for adding compression in vertical direction and consequently to reduce instability.
The TENSA post tensioning systems are meant to give compression stresses to concrete with the use of post tensioning tendons made of steel strands or steel bars.
