Question 1

Slimtowers™: A Revolutionary Wind Tower System

Accepted Answer

Our patented wind tower system represents a paradigm shift in the way wind towers are designed. In contrast to other towers, our tower system employs a reduced-size uniform non-tapered central spinal core from the foundation to the nacelle that can be fabricated in its entirety at the shop and transported to the project site where it is constructed as one unit without slicing and re-splicing and without the need for a larger base.  With Slimtowers™, the greater part of the bending moments imposed on the tower are resisted by more efficient tubular arms that dramatically reduce and modify the bending moments imposed on the spinal core, allowing the spinal core to be significantly reduced in size.  In addition, the tower’s drum-like assembly at each level can support a climbing tower crane to erect the next tower level and facilitate the installation of the turbine and blades, thereby circumventing the need for a mammoth and costly land-staged crane.

Our revolutionary Slimtowers™ is the only system that fundamentally changes the tower’s structural behavior, reduces the size of the tower core, and resolves the major drawbacks of today’s towers in one integrated structure.  It boosts the hub height of the tower without exceeding current transportation limits, cuts the manufacturing and installation time, reduces the demand for labor both in the fabricating shop and on-site, diminishes the need for inspections, and promotes a more efficient use of material, thereby enhancing the feasibility of taller towers while reducing the tower total cost and overall delivery time.

Our patented Slimtowers™ design is also the ideal offshore floating tower system and offers new possibilities for efficiently harnessing the abundant wind energy offshore and further out at sea. Our system controls the floating tower movements and permits the installation of efficient and economical wind towers in deeper waters.  The entire floating tower can be pre-assembled on shore, then floated and towed fully assembled to its destination offshore, where it would be permanently anchored into the seabed.

Our revolutionary patented system is superior to any other tower structure in the market today.  It promises to advance wind energy projects beyond their current limitations and propel wind to become a mainstream form of energy in a broader marketplace. The distinctive wide-ranging advantages present a game-changing breakthrough and position Slimtowers™ to become the tower of choice for the future in a market that is estimated to exceed $1 trillion in the US alone and $5 trillion worldwide in installations by 2030.

Question 2

Limitations of Today’s Towers

Accepted Answer

At the present time, the most common wind turbine tower structure is a tapered-tube construction: a massive and costly conical tower of a large diameter.  When the tower exceeds 80 meters (260’) in height, its base diameter exceeds 4 meters (13’) in width, making the tower non-transportable on land.  With the trend towards taller towers, larger and heavier turbines and longer blades, the diameter of today’s tower will have to keep getting larger, raising total costs, and rendering the present tower structure non-viable.  Slicing the tower into smaller pieces creates numerous weak links along the structure, increases the demand for skilled labor, and risks misalignment.  A hybrid of today’s conical steel tower atop a larger steel or concrete base splits the tower construction into different trades, increases field labor, and still results in a huge tower structure.  Both attempted remedies significantly increase overall cost and delivery time.  Slimtowers™ solves these limitations.

Question 3

Moment Diagram Comparison

Question 4

Features & Advantages of the Slimtowers™ Solution

Accepted Answer

The Slimtowers™ innovation is an integrated structural system that transforms today’s massive and costly free-standing tapered-tube tower into a dramatically reduced-size transportable and uniform central core while boosting the tower’s stiffness and load resisting capacity by more efficient structural means.  Our patented design is the first of its kind: simple, versatile, structurally potent, and visually pleasing.  Specifically:

Slimtowers™ reduces the bending moments imposed on the tower core and modifies their distribution along the tower substantially, allowing a reduced-size core and justifying, structurally and economically, a uniform, non-tapered core from the foundation to the nacelle.

Doubling the tower height generally requires doubling the diameter of the tower as well, increasing the material by a factor of four.  Slimtowers™ reduces the core diameter significantly, thereby reducing the demand for material.

Slimtowers™ improves the buckling characteristics of the tower core, allowing the core to resist appreciably larger compression forces compared to a free-standing core of the same size.

To avoid local buckling, increasing the core diameter requires a proportional increase in the core shell thickness.  In contrast, by reducing the core diameter, Slimtowers™ permits a reduction in its shell thickness.

Slimtowers™ offers increased stiffness and capacity at lower costs by simply widening the distance between the tubular arms.  This presents a tradeoff, which can be optimized, between a larger distance between the tubular arms and the length of the turbine shaft.

Slimtowers™, with its smaller exposed surface area, reduces the cost of surface protection substantially.

Slimtowers™ core, extending for the full height of the tower, carries inside the core all needed utility lines and provides uninterrupted protected access to the nacelle.

Slimtowers™ reduced-size core allows for taller towers without exceeding current transportation limits, avoiding a major cost component of today's wind towers.

Slimtowers™ drum-like assembly at each level, in addition to its structural function in the tower, can serve as a stage to support a climbing tower crane to install the tower as well as the turbine and blades, avoiding the need for a larger and much costlier land-staged crane.

Slimtowers™ allows for variations of towers and permits the evaluation of several variables which can be optimized in reaching the best solution for each project, unlocking previously untapped potential for greatly reducing total expenditures and lowering the unit cost of energy.

The above features and advantages demonstrate how the Slimtowers™ innovation is superior to the prior art towers.  The result is a super tall wind tower capable of harnessing more powerful winds at higher altitudes that is slimmer, less costly, efficient, and easier and faster to fabricate, transport, and install.