Tower Sizing

[Tritium]

I have a chance to get 150' of 8 7/8" or 13" Oil well steel casing (schedule 80 to 100) for free. Question is this. The smaller weighs in at 53 lbs per foot. The larger at over 100. Is this too heavy to raise with a large tractor and a gin pole as a tilt up installation? The weights would be about 8000 lbs for the smaller and 15,000 for the larger pipe. This is for a 20' mill. If I recall the owner of the board used 10" schedule 40 for his 20 footer.

Thurmond

[etownlax]

WOW.. Nice!

Well I don't know much about about tower physics.BUT. If you can get it for FREE then I'd say use it and try to make it work. My best guess is that a large tractor could possibly lift one. But I'd think that traction would be a big problem. Further more, you'd also would want some way that once the tower goes so far up that if the tractor were to loss traction all togather that it wouldn't violently fall and pull the tractor back.

If you're too concerned about the tractor then you could use an electric powered or even a gas powered worm-gear or some sort of torque converter to light it very slowly.

And I'd also figure you'd want fairly thick guy wires. Cause if the tower gets a movin for some reason, it will have a lot of interia and therefor want to keep going once it gets moving. So it will put a lot of pressure on your guys if that does indeed happen.

Just my thoughts. I haven't built a tower, yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

-Randy

[Warrior]

I would get both an build a freestanding tower. I would get both even if I weren't building a tower it free!!!

[Nando]

Thurmond:

Get both, also you can build the tower like Dan did it, in sections like 13, 13 then 8-7/8

See my photos uploads and download the : Prototype_10KW_turbine.pdf where you can see how to build a tower using such pipes.

Nando

[scorman]

Thurmond,

I'd be seriously considering a tiltover (not tiltup) design like Mario posted some pics of his pipe design on the Canadian forum:

http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showpost.php?p=1049&postcount=4

Here you can use the heaviest pipe for the base tower and the massive weight of the lowest section and then use the lighter but longer tower pipe as the part that needs counterbalance. We visited him a few weeks ago and I can only simplify the equation this way ...my wife could raise and lower that 65 foot tower by the single boat winch and 1/4 cable without straining in about 3+ minutes up or down ..the trick is to get it to teetertotter with proper distribution of weight ...not rocket science

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

[Mary B]

What size pipe and wall thickness? And how big of a wind generator on it?

[Mary B]

Keep in mind the thicker the guy wires the higher the static down force on the tower. It is possible to go to thick.

[phil b]

I think DanB has a very good 10" diameter tower. He used a lighter wall pipe than you have. The closest already built tower to your size pipe is the one Nando is refuring to. Prairie Turbines also have a tower with 6" pipe, 1/4" thick and 60 feet tall. You might take a look at their tower.

I am very familiar with that type of pipe you have. I think both will make a heavy duty tower...almost tornado and hurricane proof. I would still weld the joints even though they are course thread and use id and od sealing surface. Low hydrogen 7018 welding rod would be a good choice on high carbon steel pipe.

The most difficult obstacle you face is moving and setting it up. I use my Agco 6690 with front end loader to raise and lower my 30' and 50' towers without a gin pole attached to the tower. I would not attempt that with the weight your tower will have. It would be time for the gin pole and wire rope block and tackel on drawbar.

Hope this helps.

Phil

[scorman]

this is a lightweight free standing turbine installation ie H200 , but is easily scaleable

Specifics from the other thread:

65 ft turbine axis height

two 6" diameter 30ft well casing  10 ft. into concrete footer as pivoting tower

tower itself comprises one 30 ft from ground up to the 1" billet pivoting point at 20 ft height and 10 ft. up, next pipe 5" is 30 ft with 10 ft nested inside the 6 in (20 feet exposed).

and above that is 20' of 4" nested 5 ft in (15 feet exposed)

a short 2 1/2 in. to swivel and fit the turbine hub for a total of 65 ft. of height

here is the pic:

there is a perspective distortion from this angle ..the far away section is really 20 ft out from the pivot and just clears the ground when positioned vertically.

The sailing mast type "spreaders" are used to stabilize the top.

He stuffed a solid billet in the bottom of the pipe near the ground and then added some more counter weight to have a slight "tongue weight" ..I'f figure less than 100 #s max on that winch cable. A heavy bracket with 5/8" bolts keep the column secure for use.

IMHO, I'd plant a 20 footer on that tower with proper guys ..that much metal can support tons in compressive load

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

[DanG]

The extreme weight pipe would make excellent anchors and base for a thin-wall large tube tilt up or anything else you want to anchor or corral off, should reduce the amount of concrete needed depending on methods used - some money saved even if you don't get bent and haul home a huge stack of it...

[etownlax]

OK, I never thought of that. But it does makes sense. Just try and use a reasonable sized guy wire I'd think.

-Randy

[Tritium]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. This will be a very large project for me. May take a few years to complete and I will keep a diary of the details.

Thurmond