FEASIBILITY STUDY ON OFFSHORE SOLAR UPDRAFT TOWER POWER PLANT

Abstract eng:
Studied in this paper, is "Solar Updraft Tower Power Plant" in marine environment from the aspect of structural form. Solar updraft tower is a thermal power plant combined with two main components; that is, the collector which collects all solar radiation and the thermal tube which guides the warm air from the collector to the upper sky more than 200m high. The conventional solar updraft tower, however, requires vast land to collect enough solar radiation, so the idea herein is to build solar updraft tower over the sea. Our goal is to stabilize 1000m high tower against the loadings in the marine environment. To accomplish this goal, the following steps were set. At first, the design of the tower is discussed. Steel tower is designed based on Japanese Structural Design Recommendation for Chimneys. Alternatively, the existing plan of RC Solar updraft tower is referred and the two designs are compared each other. From the aspect of weight, RC tower is applied for the following analysis. Next, the buoy for the 1000 m RC tower is assessed. Here, the buoy geometry is set to be cylinder, for the sake of simplicity. From the calculation of buoyancy and stability, it is recommended that the range of radius is 60 m ~ 124 m and that the range of buoy height is 26 m ~ 311 m. Again, for the simplicity, the buoy with radius is set to be 60 m, same with tower, and the height is set to be 311 m. Finally, one prototype of offshore solar updraft tower is modelled. The static analysis in the marine environment is carried out. To calculate the model’s stability, the vibration analysis and stress analysis are done with either rigid body model or elastic model. With respect of natural frequency, the first natural frequency is very small, although the third mode may cause resonance with wind or wave. From the view of working stress, a part of tower base is yielded so that at least the thickness of shell should be carefully considered. Dynamic load such as wind load has considerable effect; however, especially the dead load has most effect. In conclusion, one simple model for Offshore Solar Updraft Tower is proposed and its requirements are shown. This assessment can be utilized for the further light and more complicate model.

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