Windfarm Portfolio Review
A major developer and operator of wind farms in Australia required a review across their portfolio to confirm compliance of the foundations with the minimum stiffness requirements to satisfy the assumed loadings upon which the towers were designed.
TGE was asked to review the geotechnical documentation across five wind farms and for each site, assess the rotational stiffness of the foundations and compare the stiffness to the minimum stiffness required for the various turbine models at each site.
The ground conditions differed for each wind farm and variability across each site required developing an envelope of subsoil properties for each site.
The ground conditions and foundation types ranged from hard-rock with post-tensioned ground anchors to deep weathered soils with gravity pad foundations. Rather than provide a simplistic single value of foundation stiffness, TGE provided a profile of stiffness as the loads increased through the operational loads to the extreme load.
