Trade Journals for the Concrete Industry

To reach the more constant and stronger wind in higher air strata, wind turbines are being designed and built higher and higher in order to improve efficiency. Increasingly this means that system performance is improving step-by-step and currently stands at 3-5 MW for on-shore towers. In order to generate such good performance from the wind on land, rotor blades with a diameter of up to 130 m are necessary. Such systems require hub heights of up to 145 m and in future this will increase even further. Today's wind turbines are built for a life span of 20 - 25 years. Due to the relatively short service life, even the dismantling of the plant and the primary energy demand for the construction of a wind turbine are receiving more attention. This means that towers carrying these systems often reach hub heights of over 100 m. Special constructional demands are made, which often cannot be implemented within the established technical regulations and thus represent new technical developments. The following article deals with a new technical development, namely the construction of externally prestressed hybrid towers by Max Bögl Wind AG, which consist of precast concrete elements made of high-strength, self-compacting concrete of strength classes up to C 70/85, and in the case of the precast adapter, even up to concrete strength class C 100/115.