Numerical Evaluation of Structural Safety for Aged Onshore Wind Foundation to Extend Service Life

• Main Authors: Youn-Ju Jeong, Min-Su Park, Sung-Hoon Song, Jeongsoo Kim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: wind foundation; onshore; structural safety; service life extension; ultimate strength; fatigue life
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/13/4561

In this paper, for the case of “service life extension” with the same capacity for wind turbines, a structural safety evaluation was carried out to determine whether to extend the service life of the aged foundation. As a result of this study, it was found that the aged foundation satisfies the structural safety of material strength, ultimate strength, fatigue life, and serviceability up to the present. Although the in-service period has been over 16 years, it has been shown that the material properties of concrete have exceeded the design strength, and no significant material deterioration has occurred. Also, structural safety could be evaluated more realistically based on actual concrete properties. In particular, it has been shown that it has a fatigue life of 40 years or more, so service life can be extended. It is expected that the methodology used in this paper will be useful not only for structural safety evaluation of the foundation in service, but also for decision-making for extending the service life. Furthermore, a more technical approach should be explored by many researchers in the future.