Experimental investigation of buckling of wind turbine tower cylindrical shells with opening and stiffening under bending

An experimental and numerical study of the buckling behavior of cantilevered shells with opening and stiffening is presented in this paper. Unlike previous experimental studies, the present work focuses on shell slenderness as well as opening and stiffening reflecting the main geometric characteristics of wind turbine towers. The specimens can be classified as medium slenderness shells affected mainly by inelastic effects and secondarily by geometric imperfections. Both load–displacement curves as well as strain measurements are presented and compared with numerical predictions by finite element analyses, accounting for both inelastic effects and geometrical nonlinearity as well as for contact interaction between the various parts of the specimens. A good agreement between numerical and experimental results was found in terms of load–displacement curves and ultimate load. Due to the influence of the shape and size of geometric imperfections, a complete match of the numerically obtained strains to the corresponding experimental ones was not possible. The provided stiffening was found to be able to compensate the strength loss due to the presence of the cut-out.