A PROPOSED TYPHOON RESISTANT DESIGN OF A WIND TURBINE TOWER IN THE PHILIPPINES

Abstract

The Philippines is essentially a typhoon-prone area which poses a threat to the structural integrity of wind turbines. Due to this scenario, the authors classified the country's wind climate according to the IEC classes. The generalized extreme value distribution was used to model the extreme wind speeds from each of the fifty stations. Areas exceeding the IEC class I 50-year return wind speeds were classified as Class 1a. Subsequently the probability of buckling failure of a wind turbine was analyzed. The analysis shows that there is a need to increase the mean of the tower buckling resistance by a factor of 1.02 to 1.74 to mitigate buckling failure due to typhoons.