Validation of a 20 m Wind Turbine Blade Model

Christian Willberg, Rakesh Ravi, Johannes Rieke and Falk Heinecke
Additional contact information
Christian Willberg: Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Rakesh Ravi: Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Johannes Rieke: Nordex Energy SE & Co. KG, Langenhorner Chaussee 600, 22419 Hamburg, Germany
Falk Heinecke: Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-49

Abstract: In the projects Smartblades and Smartblades 2 a full-scale 20 m rotor blade for the NREL CART3 wind turbine was designed, built and tested. The rotor blade was intended to have a strong bending–torsion coupling. By means of the experiments, the proof for the technology in question was supposed to be provided. The experimental work was accompanied by simulations. The aim of the paper was to describe and publish a reference finite element model for the 20 m rotor blade. The validation procedure is presented, as are the modelling strategy and the limitations of the model. The finite element model is created using quadratic finite shell elements and quadratic solid elements. Different data sets were used for the validation. First, the data of static test bench experiments were used. The validation comprised the comparison of global displacement and local strain measurements for various flap and edge bending tests and for torsion unit loading tests. Second, the blades’ eigenfrequencies and eigenvectors in clamped and free–free scenarios were used for validation. Third, the mass distributions of the finite element and real blade were investigated. The paper provides the evaluated experimental data, and all analysed scenarios and the corresponding finite element models in Abaqus, Ansys and Nastran and formats as a reference dataset.

Keywords: validation; wind turbine blade; structure mechanics; FEM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2451/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/9/2451/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:9:p:2451-:d:543296

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().