Extreme load estimation of the wind turbine tower during power production

Wind turbines have to be designed against extreme load during power production with the recurrence period of 50 years. This extreme load is usually calculated through statistical extrapolation. However, large uncertainties exist in the estimation of the extreme load. This study aims to reduce these uncertainties in the statistical extrapolation by using systematic simulations. First, a new criterion is proposed for the data sets to be used for the statistical extrapolation and the resulting uncertainty satisfies the requirement in the standard for prediction of wind load. Then, a new extrapolation factor for load extrapolation is proposed and the predicted maximum tower bending moments at all the heights show favorable agreement with measurement. Finally, empirical formulae are proposed to estimate the expected value of the maximum tower bending moment and the predicted values show good agreement with the numerical simulations.