Fatigue analysis of wind turbine blade for various materials

Abstract

A 300 kW horizontal axis wind turbine with S809 airfoil is considered for predicting the fatigue life. The wind turbine blade is designed using Blade Element Momentum (BEM) method. The blade geometries such as chord and pitch angle distributions are determined accordingly the blade is modelled using CREO software. The method of analysis is done by considering both static and transient conditions with varying boundary conditions and different loading pressures. The objective of this work is to identify the fatigue life cycles of the wind turbine blade for various composite materials (Shokrieh and Rafiee, 2016) under various operating conditions. Modelled blade is analysed at both static and transient conditions by considering various composite materials as wind turbine blade material. Simple cyclic loading conditions at stress ratio, R = −1 and R ≠ −1 are considered for the transient analysis. Static analysis is done by taking a single cut-out velocity of 12 m/s. Steady loading and response conditions are assumed; that is, the loads and the structure's response are assumed to vary slowly with respect to time. The fatigue life of the wind turbine is calculated for Glass fibre reinforced plastics-glass fibre, Carbon fibre, Technora fibre, Kevlar fibre and E-glass materials and thereby suggesting the best material having high fatigue life, less damage factor and good safety factor.