US-Egypt Cooperative Research: Seismic Risk Assessment of Wind Turbine Towers in Zafarana Wind Farm Egypt

美埃合作研究：埃及扎法拉纳风电场风力发电机塔架地震风险评估

• 批准号: 1445712
• 负责人: Ahmed Elgamal
• 金额: $ 25.25万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-10-01 至 2018-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1445712&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: US; Egypt; Cooperative; Research; Seismic

This project supports a cooperative research project by Dr Ahmed Elgamal, University of California-San Diego in collaboration with Dr. Khaled El-Zahaby, Chairman, Housing and Building national Research Center (HBRC) in Cairo, Egypt. They will performe a Seismic Risk Assessment of Wind Turbine Towers in the Zafarana Wind Farm in Egypt. The Zafarana wind farm in 2012 was generating a capacity of 517MW, making it one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world. It is located in an active seismic zone along the west side of the Gulf of Suez. An extension of the wind farm southward is under consideration for construction in the near future. Seismic risk assessment is needed to assess the structural integrity of wind towers under expected seismic hazard events in this location, and this risk assessment procedure is likely to be valuable whenever wind turbines are located in a potentially active seismic region. The project objective is to pursue interdisciplinary studies to define seismic risk and seismic loads via a range of seismic analyses that are coupled with measured structural values in the field. The ultimate goal is to define and improve seismic design of wind turbine structures.Wind turbines are unique structures. They are tall, slender and flexible and susceptible to dynamic loads. In addition, they are operating/moving structures as compared to buildings or bridges which are stationary. As alternative energy sources such as wind become more important globally, we will continue to have more wind turbine structures; therefore, pursuing research for these structures is important and broadly relevant. This international project combines a team of scientists, engineers, students and researchers from two countries. The diverse expertise of the two teams is a strength of the research effort and the cultural exchange between them is an important broader impact of this project. The research will be integrated into several facets of the structural and geotechnical engineering programs at the participating institutes. Results of this study will be of relevance to similar projects in the Middle East, as well as in other seismically active regions worldwide. Graduate and undergraduate students from the US and from Egypt will participate in the research, which ranges from numerical modeling of structure and soil structure interaction of wind turbine towers to the practical aspects of conducting a field investigation and instrumentation, thus providing a well-rounded education for the participants. In this regard, students from STEM under-represented communities will be actively recruited. Additionally, the international/intercultural collaborative aspects of the proposed research will provide a unique experience for those involved.The proposed seismological studies, geo technical studies for loads, dynamic field measurements, and structural seismic analyses of existing wind towers will greatly enhance the associated design recommendations and provide strong intellectual merit for this project. The actual estimated site loads can be applied to the new towers that will be located in the same zone. The new wind turbine ambient vibration datasets to be acquired at Zafarana will constitute a basis for calibration of analysis tools for studies elsewhere. This data will be professionally archived and made available for use by interested researchers and practitioners worldwide. Valuable recommendations will be deduced for provisions in design codes based on realistic data and detailed structural assessments of the wind turbines. This project is funded through the US-Egypt Joint Science and Technology Fund Program. Support for the U.S. side of these cooperative projects is provided to the National Science Foundation by the U.S. Department of State. The Egyptian Government provides support for the Egyptian side of the collaboration.

该项目支持加利福尼亚大学迭戈分校的艾哈迈德·埃尔加马尔（Ahmed Elgamal）博士与位于埃及开罗的住房和建筑国家研究中心（HBRC）董事长Khaled El-Zahaby博士合作。他们将对埃及的扎法拉纳风塔中的风力涡轮塔进行地震风险评估。 2012年的Zafarana风电场的产量为517MW，使其成为世界上最大的陆上风电场之一。它位于苏伊士湾西侧的一个主动地震带。在不久的将来正在考虑建造风场的延伸。需要进行地震风险评估来评估在该位置预期的地震危险事件下风塔的结构完整性，并且只要风力涡轮机位于潜在的活跃地震区域，这种风险评估程序就可能很有价值。该项目的目标是通过一系列地震分析进行跨学科研究，以定义地震风险和地震载荷，这些地震分析与该领域中测得的结构值相结合。最终目标是定义和改善风力涡轮机结构的地震设计。风涡轮机是独特的结构。它们高，苗条，灵活，容易受到动态载荷的影响。此外，与固定的建筑物或桥梁相比，它们正在运行/移动结构。随着诸如风之类的替代能源在全球范围内变得越来越重要，我们将继续拥有更多的风力涡轮机结构。因此，对这些结构进行研究至关重要，而且广泛相关。这个国际项目结合了来自两个国家的科学家，工程师，学生和研究人员团队。这两个团队的多样化专业知识是研究工作的优势，它们之间的文化交流是该项目的重要广泛影响。该研究将纳入参与机构的结构和岩土工程计划的几个方面。这项研究的结果将与中东的类似项目以及全球其他地震活跃地区有关。来自美国和埃及的研究生和本科生将参加这项研究，从风力涡轮塔的结构和土壤结构相互作用的数值建模到进行现场调查和仪器的实际方面，从而为参与者提供了全面的教育。在这方面，将积极招募来自STEM代表性不足社区的学生。此外，拟议研究的国际/跨文化协作方面将为相关人员提供独特的经验。拟议的地震学研究，用于负载的GEO技术研究，动态现场测量以及现有风塔的结构性地震分析将极大地增强相关的指定并为该项目提供强大的智力优点。实际的估计站点负载可以应用于将位于同一区域的新塔。在Zafarana获得的新风力涡轮机环境振动数据集将构成校准其他地方研究的分析工具的基础。这些数据将经过专业的存档，并可供全球感兴趣的研究人员和从业人员使用。根据现实数据和风力涡轮机的详细结构评估，将针对设计代码中的规定推导有价值的建议。该项目是通过美国埃及联合科学技术基金计划资助的。美国国务院向美国国家科学基金会提供了对这些合作项目的支持。埃及政府为合作的埃及方面提供了支持。