Modified laser scanned point cloud dataset of a modern wind turbine support tower

Tower summaryA steel offshore wind turbine support tower (WTST) was laser scanned to develop a geometric digital twinning protocol of metal shells of revolution with applications in fabrication quality assessment and structural analysis with the real shell geometry. The WTST in question was fabricated by circumferentially welding cylindrical/ conical cans together to create sections which were then bolted together at the flanges to form the WTST. The WTST was fully assembled minus the attachment of the nacelle ready for shipping and was standing in an upright position next to other WTSTs.Scanning methodologyThe painted outer surface of the WTST was laser scanned from ground level from multiple positions around the WTST using a Leica ScanStation P40 with the maximum available scanning resolution. Scanning positions were governed by the arrangement of WTSTs on site and other site restrictions. The WTST was scanned on a clear day with low expected wind speeds (&lt; 10 km/h) for reduced tower motion. Physical control points were used to aid point cloud registration.Data processingThe scanning contractor performed initial point cloud registration first using physical control points, then with manually created control points in overlapping regions in software and finally with cloud-to-cloud registration in an attempt to achieve the best possible registration. Multiple attempts at registration were required as viewing the registered point cloud in cylindrical coordinates revealed significant misalignments. Only scans from positions close to the WTST were considered. Additionally any features which did not correspond to the WTST shell wall such as staircases were manually removed by the scanning contractor.Release data descriptionThe released dataset includes a total of 6 .pts files corresponding to point clouds from 6 scanning locations. Each file contains a single point cloud from a single scan position after the registration transformation from the scanning contractor has been applied. The columns in the .pts files correspond to the Cartesian <i>x</i>, <i>y</i> and <i>z</i> coordinates. The point cloud dataset has been augmented such that it no longer reflects any real tower and thus users should not attempt to draw conclusions about the WTST itself. The dataset is provided only for the purposes of algorithm testing and development.The geometric digital twinning protocol developed by the authors to be used in conjunction with this dataset can be found at https://github.com/KathirkamanathanL/AxisymmetricShellGDTProtocolPublic