Effect of Spar Design Optimization on the Mass and Cost of a Large-Scale Composite Wind Turbine Blade

Khazar Hayat, Shafaqat Siddique, Tipu Sultan, Hafiz T. Ali, Fahed A. Aloufi and Riyadh F. Halawani
Additional contact information
Khazar Hayat: Department of the Mechanical Engineering, Main Campus, The University of Lahore (UoL), 1-km Defense Road, Lahore 54590, Pakistan
Shafaqat Siddique: Department of the Mechanical Engineering, Main Campus, The University of Lahore (UoL), 1-km Defense Road, Lahore 54590, Pakistan
Tipu Sultan: Department of the Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering (SEN), University of Management and Technology (UMT), C-II, Johar Town, Lahore 54770, Pakistan
Hafiz T. Ali: Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Taif University, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
Fahed A. Aloufi: Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh F. Halawani: Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-17

Abstract: Mass and cost tradeoffs by deploying three optimized spars, made of all-glass, hybrid and all-carbon composites, applied to a publicly available large-scale composite blade of 100 m in length for a 13.2 MW wind turbine, are explored. The blade mass and cost minimizations are calculated for two design load cases, generating the worst aerodynamic loads for parked and rotating rotor blades, while meeting the stiffness, strength, stability and resonance design requirements, as recommended by the wind turbine standards. The optimization cases are formulated as a single-objective, multi-constraint optimization problem, while taking into account the manufacturability of hybrid spars in particular, and it is solved using a genetic algorithm method. The blade mass lowers in the range of 8.1–13.3%, 18.5–20.7% and 25.7–26.4% for the optimized all-glass, hybrid and all-carbon spars, respectively, while the cost decreases for the optimized all-glass spars only. The cost increases in a range of 1.2–13.6% and 24.5–31.5% when the optimized hybrid and all-carbon spars are used. Further, the hybrid spar optimization using the blade mass and cost objective functions, as well as the effects of spar optimization on the blade’s structural performance in terms of tip deflection, strength, buckling resistance and first natural frequency, are discussed.

Keywords: large-scale wind turbine; composite blade; spar optimization (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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