I'm not an engineer, and didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but 131MPH doesn't seem like it should be strong enough to cause complete failure of a wind farm. That's insane wind, but I would think they'd be designed for higher. Google tells me they have had upper 90's winds before.
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- Thread starter nfrine
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I am an engineer (but not a structural engineer). My guess is they are designed for lower wind speeds than that (maybe 100-110 mph... 120 mph max?). The odds of any one point experiencing 100 mph winds over a design life-span of the structure (20, 30, 40 years?) is pretty low. Yes it happens every year somewhere, but it's probably cost-prohibitive to design each structure for 130 mph wind. Plus if they do fail and fall over, they're generally falling into open farmland with an extremely low safety risk.
Someone has completed a cost/risk analysis on this.... just not me.
131MPH is one thing. 131MPH on a structure that large is very different. Also, 131MPH measured at the surface would be likely significantly higher a couple hundred feet up like those are. Add in that you are not going to be getting a uniform load and BAM.
Just insert Iowa instead of Alabama towards the end.
They might be able to comprehend the heat... Just without the AC.
European heatwave linked to 1,000 excess deaths in France
AFP estimates that at least 191 million people are forecast to experience temperatures of at least 35C in Europe.
Listen to this man - he smart
Windspeeds at the hub (~300 ft AGL) are typically higher than at the surface, with less turbulence wake at the boundary layer of the terrain. Now factor in the blade height reaches a couple hundred feet higher than the hub still, and yep - you ain't designing an economic system that can withstand the extreme conditions observed.
If they confirm 131mph at the surface, windspeed could have easily exceeded 180mph at the 500+ ft tip height. That's quite a load spread across a blade surface, and the tower structures aren't designed to survive that.
That fiberglass all over when those blades hit are going to be a mess for the landowner.
Most buildings are designed for 90mph (50 year wind event). Like others have said, the pressure goes up the taller the structure is. Not sure what wind turbines are required to be designed for. Would not surprise me at all that 130mph would be way higher than that
Like you said, it's a cost/risk analysis. Wind pressure (actual force in the tower) is a function of the wind speed squared. So 130mph puts about twice as much stress on a turbine as 90mph. So the structure gets more expensive quickly if you try to design for it. Turbines collapsing pose a small risk to human life, so wouldn't surprise me if they're not designed for that high of loads. Especially since their expected life span is pretty short. They aren't expected to last 75-100 years like a building.
We live in a split foyer house, and with the AC on the temperature differential between upstairs and downstairs seems enormous, especially when it gets ridiculously hot outside like now.
You either sit downstairs with a blanket wrapped around you or you sit upstairs where it's a little warm. I have a large fan at the bottom of the steps blowing the cold air upstairs, but wish there was more I could do to even out the temperature.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
You either sit downstairs with a blanket wrapped around you or you sit upstairs where it's a little warm. I have a large fan at the bottom of the steps blowing the cold air upstairs, but wish there was more I could do to even out the temperature.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!
Close the cold air returns and most of the registers in the basement
The HVAC folks tell me the opposite. They tell me to make sure all registers throughout the house are clear and open.
If you have forced air heating, leave the furnace fan running 24/7. If the registers are balanced properly, this action should help even the temp throughout the house--may not completely solve the issue but will certainly help. I have geothermal which is slower to correct temperature differences because of the lower temps the furnace operates at, and except for a unit replacement a few years back, my furnace fan has been running 24/7 since the original install in 1995 simply to address this problem
Putting a tray of ice cubes in your BVDs works better than ceiling fans, but doesn't address the problem of the difference in temps between the upper and lower levels
Thats the same here. Have a powerful floor fan in the down stairs. And a smaller fan on The landing to try to get the cold air up stairs.
Yeah 131 surface winds means higher at 280-320ft hub heights. Theres only so much you can design for and these winds were sustained too from what is out there.
Didn't the 2020 Derecheo record 140 mph west of Cedar Rapids, or was that unofficial.
it’s going to be in that 250-300% area. It will wreck the yields for a couple years. They do something like a 100/80/60/40 type deal for % yield cut over 4 years.
