Optimized design of a self-supporting monopole tower of a wind turbine

The design of self-supporting monopoles towers is a current challenge in the wind turbine engineering design research and industry. This work presents a multi-objective optimization approach of such structure. The goal is to support engineers in the preliminary design phase by minimizing the weight and the capacity factor (defined as the ratio of the maximum design stress to the maximum allowable stress), while maintaining the required strength, stability and meeting the requirements of the appropriate international standards. The developed tool uses Genetic Algorithm and is implemented in Scilab open source software. Before being used, the proposed tool is validated using data obtained by Finite Element Method (FEM).