The influence of a roof mounted small-scale HAWT on headed studs fatigue resistance

Abstract

Installation of small-scale wind turbines in urban regions can gain higher energy efficiency, considering that energy production takes place at the place of its consumption. The aim of this work is to investigate effects of installation of a small-scale horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) on a roof structure of an existing building. This paper is focused on fatigue resistance of headed studs that are preinstalled in the building roof composite steel-concrete deck to ensure shear connection and that are indirectly dynamically loaded during wind turbine operation. Turbulent wind profiles with mean wind speeds from 3 m/s up to 15 m/s are generated and applied on the model of HAWT with 5 m rotor diameter using Ashes software package. Time-dependent forces and bending moments induced by wind turbine operation are applied on the composite roof deck model. Based on the time-history of transverse force in the composite steel-concrete beam and wind speed records during a year, fatigue cumulative damage of headed studs is calculated according to Eurocode. It is obtained that installation of HAWT do not significantly affect residual life of headed studs with reference to fatigue.