A method of determining test load for full-scale wind turbine blade fatigue tests

Abstract

Full-scale fatigue test is an effective method for validating the fatigue performance of wind turbine blade. Its primary problem is how to design the test load. The conventional approach to determine test load requires a complicated and time-consuming process. Thus, a simplified method for directly converting load spectrum of blade into test load is proposed in this paper. Firstly, beam theory is used to obtain the relationship between stress, strain and bending moment of blade cross section. Based on the assumption of local stress concentration and linear relationship between stress and strain, M-N curves (applied moment vs. allowable number of cycles to failure) is defined. Secondly, based on Miner's linear cumulative damage theory and constant life diagram, the equivalent fatigue cumulative damage of load spectrum which is equal to the damage of full-scale fatigue test is obtained. Then, in the case of the selected test load ratio and cycles, the mean and amplitude of test load can be solved. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is verified by an illustrative example. The result indicates that the error of the calculated results between this method and the traditional method is close to 5 %, and it can be used for fatigue test and improve the efficiency of test load design.