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Wind Towers
Native American Technologies recently
completed a successful phase I feasibility/design project funded
by the Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL), under the NREL - Low Wind Speed Turbine (LWST)
Program. --NREL
Publication-- The project was to design a self erecting steel tower
that could reach heights greater than conventional steel towers,
and meet the program goals of 3˘ per kW-hr by 2012. The project
exceeded both of those goals – towers with unlimited height
capability, and 3˘ per kW-hr cost of energy, now. The design is
called an “UltraTall” tower. NA Tech Inc. is currently looking for interested groups to join us in building a full scale prototype of this tower design. We are currently working with Clipper Wind, and Bug-O among others to complete this task. -- Innovations -- 1) Use automated thermal forming to form the tower sections. This portable process allows the steel plate to be formed on-site, completely eliminating the cost of huge fabrication facilities and eliminating the cost of transporting the tower sections. 2) “Nest” the tower sections inside one another all sitting on the foundation. Then use an innovative erection system to erect the tower. This eliminates the cost of a crane, and eliminates the height restriction imposed by the available cranes. This tower design will support tower heights of up to 400 meters or greater. The tower is an “all welded” design in which all of the tower sections are welded together “in the field” rather than bolting. This is the technique commonly used by large fabricators for shipbuilding, constructing large off-shore oil platforms, large water towers, etc. 3) Use the flexibility of the thermal forming process to produce conical tower sections (corrugated), instead of the conventional cylindrical tower shape. This increases the mechanical stiffness of the tower and reduces the thickness of the steel by 30% -- resulting in a 30% cost savings in tower steel, and reducing the transportation cost of the steel to the wind energy installation site.
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copyright 2008 Native American Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
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