Identification of Chord Wise Location of Shear Web for Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

Wind turbine blades are huge structures, with complex design. Also, Blade is most complicated and costly component of a wind turbine. In present study mass of blade is reduced without increasing the stresses developed. For calculating aerodynamic loads acting on a blade of wind turbine BEM (Blade Element Momentum) theory is used. Tangential and Normal Aerodynamic loads are calculated for three different wind velocities i.e. 6, 8 and 10 m/s, In this study three dimensional modeling of blade is done using special wind turbine blade modeling software called Numerical Manufacturing and Design (NuMAD). The stresses developed at different critical points of turbine blade are obtained. The mass of turbine blade for different shear web configuration are also calculated. Using these values of stresses, optimal location of shear web is identified in MATLAB using genetic algorithm tool. The optimal locations of shear web are 55.18%, 55.84% and 55.27% and optimal mass of the blades are 2095.4 kg, 2105.1 kg and 2098.4 kg for the wind velocities of 6, 8 and 10 m/s respectively. The mass of the blade is reduced up to 1.02%.