Effect of a Damage to Modal Parameters of a Wind Turbine Blade

International audienceThis study reports structural dynamic characteristics obtained experimentally from an extensive testing campaign on a 34m long wind turbine blade mounted on a test-rig under laboratory conditions. Further, these experimental results have been compared with analog numerical results obtained from a very detailed FE model of the same blade using 3D solid elements. Both an undamaged and a damaged blade are investigated, and it is observed that the natural frequencies of the first few modes of the blade change very little due to a significant artificial damage imposed in tailing edge, whereas the mode shapes - especially if decomposed into the flapwise, edgewise and torsional components - contain information which might be helpful for detecting and localizing wind turbine blade damages

Design Optimization of a 5 MW Floating Offshore Vertical-axis Wind Turbine

This paper outlines results of a proposed layout of a light 2-bladed rotor, with a driving torque constraint matching the generator design, and shows details of the pultruded blade – and rotor geometry. In comparison with the 1st baseline design of a 5 MW VAWT concept this present development provides during standstill and operation significant less mass with a comparable level of loading strain in the blades and in the junctions between blade and tower. Optimized blade profile having a low weight and high stiffness is obtained according to the design evaluations based on the standstill calculations in ANSYS software. The selected profiles are used in the aero dynamic simulation. Furthermore the simulation code will be demonstrated to show the fully development model, integrating the simulation of turbulent wind inflow, actuator cylinder flow model, power controls, hydraulic floater - and mooring line systems implementation