Wind tower engineering [RE-wrenches]

[William Miller]

Colleagues:

I have a dilemma:  I am preparing to do my first complete wind power
installation.  The generator will be a Southwest Windpower Windseeker 503.
I want to put this on 30 foot Rohn 45G tower with factory specified
foundation.  As near as I can tell, this will be a very mechanically stable
installation.

I am preparing the building permit application.  The building department
needs to see some engineering.  I thought I could use the Rohn
specifications on what loads it would support at the specified wind
velocity (I believe our building department uses 100 mph) and show that the
503 does not present near that much load.  I was hoping to avoid the
expense of additional engineering.  Rohn has their own engineers that have
already calculated these tower capabilities.

I contacted Southwest Windpower to ask for the specifications.  They are
willing to tell me on the telephone that the generator presents a thrust of
120 pounds at 100 mph with a safety factor of 30%.  They are not willing to
put that in writing!

This last points seems quite unreasonable.  I was told they would only
stamp a complete analysis of the tower and the machine.  I am waiting for a
quote for them to do that, but I would hesitate to give them this business
because they are basically precluding me form hiring any other engineering
firm to do this because they are withholding the specifications.

Has this ever happened to anyone else on this list?  I am quite perplexed.

William Miller




__________________________________________________________________
William Miller
SLO Communications: Communications and Power Systems Consulting
Chief Engineer, KCBX: NPR and PRI for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara
PO Box 50, Santa Margarita, CA 93453
Voice :805-438-5600		Fax: 805-438-4607	VMail: 805-546-4875
email: wrmiller at slonet.org
License No. C-10-773985
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