The Strength Analysis And Optimization Design Of The Load Carrying Structure Of Tidal Current Power Station

The21st century is a century of the oceans, many countries are turning their eyes to the“blue land” in order to cope with the energy crisis therefore the development and utilization ofocean energy are becoming more and more important. The tidal current energy reserves areabundant in China, there can be tremendous potential for development in this field.The mainly use of tidal current energy is electricity generation, we need the load carryingstructure of turbine and other devices to turn kinetic energy into electrical energy. Presently,tidal current power stations have three forms, which are the floating stations, the pillarsupported and seabed stations. The main works in this thesis is the general design andoptimization of a300kW floating tidal current power station，which is supported by “TheNational Ocean Special Funds” program.First of all, the structure type of the tidal current power station was determined after thecomparison of technical parameters among three different structure types in the same givenconditions.Then the common FEA software Patran and Nastran were used to check if the strength ofthe whole structure meets the requirements of China Classification Society. The structurestrength turned to meet the requirements and be much smaller than the allowable values, thefurther optimization would be needed.After that, the buckling stability of the support structure of hydraulic turbine was as theresearch object to be analyzed. The results showed that the structure would not be buckling incurrent loads.Finally setting the sectional parameters of each component as design variables, the stressintensity of plate and girder units as constraints, the minimize weight of structure as objectiveto do the optimization analysis. The total weight of whole structure was effectively reducedthrough the optimization, and there was still a certain degree of stress margining.It can be concluded by article that the monomeric-barge tidal current power station meetsthe requirements working and relevant norms, the article will provide a theoretical basis forthe next work.