Fluid-structure coupled analyses of composite wind turbine blades

Abstract

The composite rotor blades have been widely used as an important part of the wind power generation systems because the strength, stiffness, durability and vibration of composite materials are all excellent. In composite laminated blades, the static and dynamic aeroelasticity tailoring can be performed by controlling laminate angle or stacking sequence. In this paper, the fluid-structure coupled analyses of 10kW wind turbine blades has been performed by means of the full coupling between CFD and CSD based finite element methods. Fiber enforced composites fabricated with three types of stacking sequences were also studied. First the centrifugal force was considered for the nonlinear static analyses of the wind turbine so as to predict the deformation of tip point in the length direction and maximum stress in the root of a wind turbine. And then, the aeroelastic static deformation was taken into account with fluid-structure interaction analysis of the wind turbine. The Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian Coordinate was used to compute fluid structure interaction analysis of the wind turbine by using ADINA program. The displacement and stress increased apparently with the increment of aerodynamic force, but under the condition of maximum rotation speed 140RPM of the wind turbine, the displacement and stress were in the range of safety.