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Wind turbines are conceived, designed and operated to interact with the environment, including through extreme
events. However, engineering malpractices combined with human or mechanical errors and defects of constituent
members and materials, still result in hundreds of structural collapse cases annually. It seems, therefore, necessary to
reflect on factual wind turbine performance against the target performance. The present paper summarises the most
severe tubular wind tower collapse incidents recorded over the past four decades, provides an account of the damage
and discusses the respective potential causes. The investigation indicates that, although accidental load induced by
typhoons and storms is the most usual reason of failure, fatal events concentrate at either early or late stage of the
designed service life. Unexpected load conditions seemed to derive from defective blade positioning or braking,
which in turn over-stress areas of transition such as joints and openings. However, a critical examination of design
standards suggests that, in general, wind turbine towers as designed and built nowadays are stable and reliable.
Hence, the chain relationship determined by the design, manufacturing, construction, operation and maintenance,
needs enhancement and further cohesion, at the time that our understanding of and adaptation to extreme events
continues to develop.
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
Figure 1. Failure type distribution of wind turbine incidents East and Southeast Asia are more frequently affected by
recorded between 1980 and 2016 (CWIF, 2017) typhoons and tropical cyclones, while Europe and North
America accumulate most of the damage seen during strong
Table 1 makes an account of accidents recorded from 2000. winds and storms. The impact of wind turbine component
The causes are varied and often involve more than one wind failure on the damage caused should also be highlighted. The
energy harvesting tower. For example, in 2003 typhoon Maemi collapse of the tower leading to total loss will make an average
hit a wind farm on Miyakoji Island damaging six wind cost of £500 000 to £5 000 000, depending on the particular
turbines, out of which three collapsed (Ishihara et al., 2005). wind turbine configuration, but its construction cost would
Later in the same year, nine turbine blades were damaged by account for about 10% of the overall investment. In contrast,
typhoon Dujuan in Guangdong, China, causing a loss of blades, nacelles and electrical components can, upon failure,
US$1·6 million (Chen et al., 2015). Li et al. (2013) reported be repaired and allow the wind energy harvesting to continue.
that three turbine towers snapped by typhoon Saomai, which Hence the reliability status of the wind turbine tower is in con-
landed in Zhejiang, China. During this event two towers over- cordance with that of the overall structure, but it differs from
turned and 15 blades were structurally broken, altogether that associated with other assemblies, such as electrical or
causing US$70 million in losses. Riso (2008) reported two mechanical components (Gintautas and Sorensen, 2014; Sheng
towers struck and ruptured by fractured blades in Denmark in and O’Connor, 2017).
2008. Similar struck blade incidents have occurred in Germany
during strong wind events in 1999, 2000 and 2003 (CWIF, The overall failure rates of wind turbine components fit a
2017). In 2008, typhoon Jangmi brought a torrential rainfall bathtub curve which varies over time (Gintautas and Sorensen,
through the mountains in Taiwan inducing bolt failures and 2014). The bathtub curve involves three typical stages: the
tower wall buckling incidents (Chou and Tu, 2011). Typhoon early-life, normal operation and wear-out stages, as shown in
Megi landed in 2010 in Fujian China, causing the failure of Figure 2.
one tower. Later in 2013, a severe tower collapse was recorded
in Guangdong, China when eight towers snapped as they were Tower failure tends to occur in the early-life stage, and is
hit by typhoon Usagi; at the time 11 blade failures were also called infant failure. This mostly relates to faulty construc-
counted, altogether producing US$16 million direct loss (Chen tion, material defects and defective design. During normal
and Xu, 2016; Chen et al., 2015, 2016). operation, the failure rate remains fairly steady and the struc-
ture exhibits the lowest hazard in its lifespan. Common causes
The most tragic wind tower collapse incident was recorded in of failure during this period relate to defective operation,
China in 2014 when typhoon Rammasun ravaged the South improper maintenance and early material deterioration. The
China Sea; one tower in Hainan province and 13 others in failure rate increases again near the end stage of the life span,
Guangdong province collapsed (Chen et al., 2016). Bäckstrand mainly due to the wearing out of parts after considerable oper-
and Hurtig (2017) discussed the case of one tower that col- ational time, as the consequence of inadequate maintenance or
lapsed in 2015 in Lemnhult, Sweden. It was determined then fatigue effects (Hau, 2013). The timing of structural failure has
that the collapse derived from bolt fatigue, presumably arising also been examined by Stenberg (2010) to find that the
from insufficient pre-tensioning force applied during construc- number of failures in Finland rose after 15 years of operation.
tion. Two years later in Germany, in 2017, one tower shell This observation was reinforced by Carlstedt (2004), who
buckled at a point localised around 15 m above the ground. reported that annual failure rates in Sweden increase after the
This was caused by a force imbalance induced by the collapse 14th operational year. Overall, failure rates at any stage of the
of one of the three blades (PEI, 2017). bathtub curve seem to correspond to two major reasons
The most common identified causes of tower collapse, follow- & extreme load conditions
ing the database outlined in Table 1, are listed in Table 2. & human or mechanical errors.
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
The immediate consequences of these include an exceedance of 3. Collapse cases under extreme
design strength of structural components, which can trigger wind events
chain effects. Blade failure, for example, increases load asym- Wind turbine tower collapses under extreme wind events are
metries which over-stress the tower section or can become commonly due to insufficient bearing and buckling strength.
windborne debris that impact adjacent structures. Human Notably, the buckling strength is the most demanding require-
errors result in faulty construction, poor maintenance or oper- ment of tower design due to the availability of steel tube manu-
ation, altogether increasing risk to unacceptable levels. In the facturing technologies which attenuate the deformities of
following sections some historical tower collapse cases are dis- wall thickness. However, weak points on walls still emerge in
cussed that illustrate those identified causes of collapse. zones where wall thickness changes, door opening areas and
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
Table 2. Major causes of tower collapse ±15° relative to the along-wind velocity component. This
Cause of failure Tower: s Occurrence: % feature has been replicated elsewhere. For example, during
typhoon Maemi the wind direction varied by 120° over short
Typhoon 29 40·8 periods of time (Ishihara et al., 2005). The lack of synchronisa-
Storm 10 14·1
tion between yawing azimuth adjustment and rapid wind direc-
Blade failure 4 5·6
Fire 4 5·6 tion changes apparently enhanced cross-wind load as well as
Bolts failure/fatigue 4 5·6 torsional vibrations of the tower (Li et al., 2013). Seemingly,
Brake failure 2 2·8 operational changes induced by the pitching system, which
Lightning 2 2·8 tend to mitigate the effective forces acting on the tower (Hau,
Faulty construction 2 2·8
2013), and the shutting-down mechanism, which activates
Others 14 19·9
when wind speed exceeds a certain threshold value to prevent
rotor revolution over-speed, were insufficient to mitigate the
peak forces that occurred during the incident.
Failure rate
Early-life stage Normal operation stage Wear-out stage 3.2 Typhoon Usagi
Another catastrophic tower failure incident happened in 2013
Infant failures Deterioration in China, as reported by Chen et al. (2015). This was associ-
ated with typhoon Usagi, whose maximum wind velocity
Intrinsic failures reached 69·4 m/s around Shanwei City. In this case, eight out
of 25 steel tube towers of the Shanwei wind farm were blown
down. Chen and Xu (2016) conducted forensic studies of the
Random failures
turbines that had collapsed and observed that the critical wind
force direction covered a range within SSW–SW (Chen et al.,
Time 2016). The investigators initially assumed that strong winds
from NNW and NW would have caused those failures.
Figure 2. A bathtub curve for failure rate plotted against time However, according to the meteorological records and simu-
lated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results, it was
found that the direction of the maximum wind at hub height
welding seams. Historical cases recorded have shown that local was SSW instead of NNE or NE, with average wind speeds of
buckling across tower shells could have led to total loss of 62·8 m/s. This observation, however, could not explain the col-
wind turbines triggered by a domino-like effect (Chen and Xu, lapse cases of the wind turbines in the farm, which were
2016; Chen et al., 2015; Ishihara et al., 2005). However, designed as class S at survival wind speed 70 m/s. The relative
although the entire wind turbine can sometimes be regarded as orientation of the peak velocity of 75·8 m/s with respect to the
a stationary structure (IEC, 2005), aeroelastic effects stand out structure was apparently not as critical as it would be if the
as a major risk. This is demonstrated by the recurrent failure predominant wind direction was NNE–NE. The compu-
of rotor blades and by the fact that recorded tower collapse tational work showed, however, that a faulty blade stop pos-
cases did not fracture only when the design wind speed was ition under relatively little wind could experience considerably
exceeded, but also under lower wind speed levels, such as in higher forces than a favourable locking position against higher
case number 38 reported in Table 1 – which refers to tower col- velocity levels. This aspect of wind turbine performance has
lapse occurring under design wind conditions. also been highlighted by Bas et al. (2012). They examined the
relationship between tower strain and yawing angle to show
the nacelle orientation could impact strain configurations
3.1 Typhoon Saomai across the tower shell during low wind speed conditions.
Li et al. (2013) reported a five-tower collapse incident happen- Furthermore, Chen et al. (2015) found that the buckled points
ing in 2006 when typhoon Saomai landed in Zhejiang province of all of the eight collapsed towers were located about 9 to
of China. Two towers out of the five buckled around the mid- 10 m above the ground. These points coincided with changes
height of the steel tower tube, while the overall system resisted of the tube shell thickness. According to the numerical model-
dangerous intense vibrations caused by gust speeds exceeding ling undertaken, substantial compressive stress was prone to
80 m/s. Two other towers collapsed following failure of their occur in between 8·2 m and 11·4 m above the ground, which
foundation system, while one another structure failed because coincided with the actual turbine buckle points. Thus, the col-
the welded joint between two tower segments fractured. This lapse cases could be explained in terms of the original design,
outcome is likely to be linked to both along-wind and cross- which disregarded the concentration of stress due to drastic
wind effects. Records taken in the locality showed that the stiffness changes along the tower shell, as well as in terms of
wind direction changed about 100° at an interval of 20 min complex aeroelastic effects derived from the relative positioning
(Li et al., 2013) – whereas extreme cross-winds usually deviate of the wind turbines and the wind flow.
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
Tower collapse induced by blade strike is thus considered to be (2011) conducted an investigation on the tower collapse that
random in nature; however, it is subject to a high probability occurred when typhoon Jangmi hit Southeast China in 2008.
of occurrence, as the statistics have shown (CWIF, 2017). Then, a 62 m high wind turbine tower located in Taichung
harbour collapsed. A post-failure analysis revealed that, at
4.2 Imbalance load 17·3 m above the ground, where the joint between the lower
Another cause of collapse often seen in the past is the force and middle shell segments lay, the 30 mm dia. connecting
imbalance generated by a failed blade. To some extent, and bolts were fractured. As a result of this, the middle and upper
owing to the configuration of members in the rotor, which is section snapped down to the ground. Investigators collected
far from being symmetric, force imbalance is a common load samples of both the broken and other intact bolts found on
type on wind turbines. It is actually modelled as a cyclic load site and tested the mechanical properties. The report revealed
by rotor designers. However, force eccentricity cannot be taken that neither the failed nor the intact bolts met the requirements
by wind turbine structures when it exceeds a certain limit. of the relevant design standard JIS-B1051 (JSA, 2000).
A case that can illustrate this was recorded in Germany in According to this, all of the broken bolts did not possess the
2017, when a 95 m tall wind turbine was overloaded due to required yield and ultimate strength, while only half of the
the fracture of one blade. The case, which to date is still under intact bolts had properties close to the strength baseline. In
investigation, showed that the localised blade failure would this event, the wind speed recorded fell within limits where
have exceeded the tower’s capacity to take an eccentric load structural survival was expected. The forensic study also
(PEI, 2017; WindAction, 2016). The tower snapped at a point revealed that the inaccurate installation of bolts generated
located 15 m above the ground, apparently following buckling locked-in effects involving stress concentration and creep,
effects in the tower shell. which undermined the effective bolt strength.
This failure mode thus originates when high vertical load 5.2 Faulty construction
becomes eccentric with respect to the centre-line of the struc- This poor practice in construction typically leads to infant
ture. The weight of the large blade of modern wind turbines failure. A wind turbine tower located in Lemnhult wind farm
can reach dozens of tonnes, and the chord length can exceed in Sweden in 2015 failed while in operation. Bäckstrand and
60 m. Therefore, a significant unbalanced rotational inertia Hurtig (2017) concluded that faulty bolt installation led to
will be generated if any blade fails while the rotor is revolving their failure. These connection components underwent some
without an effective emergency braking operation mechanism. fatigue, after which the bolts in the first joint fractured causing
Deflections and vibrations derived from such a failure event the upper part of the wind turbine to fall down. However, the
could rise to unsafe levels if the cyclic load approaches the connection failure was sudden, and the bottom tower shell
natural vibration frequency of the tower (Hau, 2013). stood without severe damage. The investigators concluded that
the cause of bolt malfunctioning was insufficient pre-tension at
There seems therefore to be a need to fine tune the balance the connection between section flanges. There, the bolts were
between the tower’s resilience to take eccentric load and the subject to load repetitions for a sustained period of time. This,
timeliness of the emergency stop mechanism. This type of combined with insufficient lubricant (molybdenum disulfide)
vibration under critical conditions thus sets up a challenge for around the screw threads, induced high friction between the
designers, who should examine the dynamic performance of stem of the connectors and their nuts. In this connection mech-
the tower in light of potential resonance effects derived from anism, high friction decreases the bias force in the nut and
the chain mechanisms depicted in the paragraphs above. hence lowers the locking force (Bäckstrand and Hurtig, 2017;
Liu et al., 2017). As the wind turbines in Lemnhult continued
5. Most common failure cases involving to harvest energy, the lowered pre-tension force on the bolts
human errors allowed larger gaps between flanges, which ended up deform-
The recorded collapse cases have often derived from human ing the clamping devices until the joint between the tower shell
errors such as poor quality control, faulty construction, erro- segments fractured. Beyond this case, even when failure does
neous operation and improper maintenance during the normal not occur, imbalance across clamping joint mechanisms can
operation and wear-out stages represented in Figure 2. This is lead to local plastification of connection components, while
therefore an area of improvement, which well-managed oper- setting up conditions for local corrosion. Loose and broken
ation and maintenance could address in power generation over bolts have apparently been found while energy is being har-
sustained periods of 20 years or more (Ding and Tian, 2012; vested; however, those incidents have apparently not been
Kovacs et al., 2011; Walford, 2006). reported by the operator to the supervisory authorities
(Bäckstrand and Hurtig, 2017).
5.1 Poor quality control
Quality control weakens for example when unqualified com- 5.3 Erroneous operation
ponents are installed onto the wind turbine. This practice Erroneous operation commonly leads to the rotor having
usually leads to infant failure, as per Figure 2. Chou and Tu unfavourable pitch or yaw and blade stopping position.
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
Those conditions could increase wind effects considerably, 6. Discussion and concluding remarks
as the net forces acting on the tower are highly sensitive to the This paper has presented historical wind turbine tower collapse
motion of the rotor. Examples of tower collapse failures cases with the aim of identifying the most common failure
include those induced by typhoon Maemi, which affected mechanisms. These turned out to be unexpected extreme
Miyakojima Island in 2003. Ishihara et al. (2005) reported that wind load levels combined with human errors such as poor
the yaw systems of the turbines identified as numbers 3, 4 and quality control, faulty construction, erroneous operation and
5 failed to lock at critical timings so that the yaw angle moved improper maintenance. Inevitably, the identified collapse cases
clockwise from 94° to 156°, which increased the effective loads would seldom be attributable to one single factor, but to a
on the towers beyond acceptable limits and eventually led to combination of factors. Extreme wind events account for about
the collapse of two towers. A similar case occurred in Point 55% of the total number of failures, but in most cases these
Tupper, Canada, when the rotor of an 80 m high turbine coincided with human errors. In this respect, selecting an
pitched in 2° instead of 90°, resulting in higher wind loads appropriate site for a wind farm is key to the success in avoid-
than expected. The blades hit the tower shell, leading to the ing unexpected extreme wind events, especially in coastline
total collapse of one tower (Ruskin, 2016). regions where wind energy infrastructure is more susceptible
to typhoon impact. It is worth noting that most of the col-
The relevance of proper operation manoeuvring has generated lapsed structures discussed in this paper were designed accord-
research on structural health monitoring aimed at improving ing to the governing design standards. Notwithstanding this
tower damage detection strategies, based on operational data finding, it is worth reflecting upon the fact that blade fracture
collected on site (Ciang et al., 2008; Ghoshal et al., 2000). To could have a positive impact regarding operational survival.
cite one example, Bas et al. (2012) discussed the relationship This is because blade failure would leave the nacelle and
between tower strains and risk factors involving nacelle orien- tower intact, hence opening up a possibility to retrofit and re-
tation, rotation speed, wind velocity, pitch angle and tempera- use the entire system. Meanwhile, it is suggested that the pre-
ture, based on a monitoring database spanning over 2 years. vention of wind energy infrastructure failure should undergo
an enhanced filter, including quality control and better-
5.4 Improper maintenance qualified workforce, as well as improved construction and
Improper servicing to maintain wind turbines is identified as a operation techniques. It would be expected that, by attending
factor responsible for tower collapses in the past. Regular pre- to such secondary issues, infant and wear-out stage failures
ventative maintenance such as structure checks, rust proofing, would be lessened.
paint touch-ups, gearbox lubrication, blade repair and oil
changes – to cite just a few, is fundamental to guarantee Special attention should also be given to cyclic effects, given
healthy working conditions. Maintenance schedules can thus the fact that rotors will typically revolve for over 109 cycles
become a key reliability factor during the wear-out stage of spanning 20 years or more (Hau, 2013), and noting that wind
wind turbines. To illustrate this, the wind turbine identified as turbines are designed for 20–30 years’ energy harvesting.
43 in the Chinese Zuoyun wind farm, which collapsed in 2010 Fatigue effects can thus be seen as a major cause of collapse
under normal weather conditions, is used as an example. In when combined with human errors, which magnify its primary
this event, components of the joint between the middle and effect. These include faulty soldering, geometry imperfections
bottom shell fractured, apparently due to bolts and flanges and substandard installation or maintenance, as discussed
being poorly maintained (Zhang, 2010). That report also made above. Cyclic loading becomes more dangerous when the oscil-
evident that nearly 40% of the bolts connecting shell segments lation frequency approximates the natural frequency of the
of tower number 61 were also broken, although the tower was tower or joint components.
standing intact. This undesired incident could thus have been
avoided if a proper maintenance schedule had been in place. Based on the scrutiny of the collapse cases reviewed, the fol-
lowing comments can be made.
Frontier Pro Services conducted an informal survey consider-
ing 75 wind farm operators across the USA (WindAction, & Most failure incidents of wind turbine towers are due to a
2008a). Various respondents indicated they had fallen behind combination of factors, among which extreme wind is
on scheduled preventative maintenance, such as oil changes identified as the most common.
and gearbox lubrication, because of a shortage of qualified & Current design standards have not been referred to in
technicians. According to Frontier Pro Services, the survey the forensic studies consulted. These therefore seem to be
found that many wind farm operation and maintenance teams reliable, but might require some fine tuning based on
are so resource-constrained that they can barely keep up with the multi-factorial incidences discussed in this
unscheduled breakdown repairs to wind turbines (WindAction, investigation.
2008b). Maintenance thus seems to be a major area of & Aeroelastic effects do not seem to be fully understood by
improvement for increasing the safety and reliability of the scientist or designers. Hence, it would seem to be
wind energy infrastructure. appropriate to undertake further research on the subject.
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Structures and Buildings Wind turbine tower collapse cases: a
historical overview
Ma, Martinez-Vazquez and Baniotopoulos
& Human or mechanical errors have been identified here as a Dimopoulos CA and Gantes CJ (2012) Experimental investigation of
secondary factor leading to wind tower collapse failure. buckling of wind turbine tower cylindrical shells with opening and
stiffening under bending. Thin-Walled Structures 54: 140–155.
The risk associated with these factors, however, could be
Ding F and Tian Z (2012) Opportunistic maintenance for wind farms
mitigated by way of the identification and enforcement of considering multi-level imperfect maintenance thresholds.
best practices during construction, operation and Renewable Energy 45: 175–182.
maintenance. Ghoshal A, Sundaresan MJ, Schulz MJ and Pai PF (2000) Structural
health monitoring techniques for wind turbine blades.
Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 85(3):
The outcome of the present study should lead to particular
309–324.
reflections by stakeholders. Structural designers and code legis- Gintautas T and Sorensen JD (2014) Integrated System Reliability
lation committees should focus further attention on the per- Analysis. Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University,
formance of parts and components, such as bolts and blades Aalborg, Denmark.
manufacture and base materials. They should also be interested GWEC (Global Wind Energy Council) (2016) Global Wind Energy
Outlook 2016. Global Wind Energy Council, Brussels, Belgium.
to exploring further details regarding the aeroelasticity of
GWEC (2017) Global Wind Statistics 2016. Global Wind Energy
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