NON-CONVENTIONAL WIND LOADING ON ULTRA-HIGH TOWERS IN SOLAR UPDRAFT POWER PLANTS

摘要

Renewable and sustainable energy sources are nowadays considered to be a key element for sustainable development of the worldwide economy. The Solar Updraft Power Plant technology addresses a very challenging, not yet exploited, idea of combining two kinds of renewable energy: wind and solar. The basic idea is the conversion of solar radiation into electric power, but the potentials of an unrivalled economical energy production can be achieved only through the highest degree of optimization of the structural behaviour, the thermodynamic efficiency and the construction costs. Solar towers, being very high-rise (up to 1500m) and extremely thin shell structures, are mainly affected by the wind action, which thus decides the feasibility of this new technology. The modelling of the wind action and the stochastic analysis of the structural response need to be up-graded, since the tower height and the loading models are far beyond the current experience. Wind tunnel tests are decisive for such a purpose. The paper summarizes the main issues to be considered in the structural design of the tower, with regard to the wind action, and introduces the large experimental investigation in the wind tunnel which is currently being performed at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum.