Research on Fatigue Damage Behavior of Main Beam Sub-Structure of Composite Wind Turbine Blade

Given the difficulty in accurately evaluating the fatigue performance of large composite wind turbine blades(referred to as blades),this paper takes the main beam structure of the blade with a rectangular cross-sectionas the simulation object and establishes a composite laminate rectangular beam structure that simultaneouslyincludes the flange,web,and adhesive layer,referred to as the blade main beam sub-structure specimen,throughthe definition of blade sub-structures.This paper examines the progressive damage evolution law of the compositelaminate rectangular beam utilizing an improved 3D Hashin failure criterion,cohesive zone model,B-K failurecriterion,and computer simulation technology.Under static loading,the layup angle of the anti-shear web hasa close relationship with the static load-carrying capacity of the composite laminate rectangular beam;under fatigueloading,the fatigue damage will first occur in the lower flange adhesive area of the whole composite laminaterectangular beam and ultimately result in the fracture failure of the entire structure.These results provide a theoreticalreference and foundation for evaluating and predicting the fatigue performance of the blade main beamstructure and even the full-size blade.

Nonlinear Flap-Wise Vibration Characteristics ofWind Turbine Blades Based onMulti-Scale AnalysisMethod

This work presents a novel approach to achieve nonlinear vibration response based on the Hamilton principle.We chose the 5-MW reference wind turbine which was established by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL),to research the effects of the nonlinear flap-wise vibration characteristics.The turbine wheel is simplified by treating the blade of a wind turbine as an Euler-Bernoulli beam,and the nonlinear flap-wise vibration characteristics of the wind turbine blades are discussed based on the simplification first.Then,the blade’s large-deflection flap-wise vibration governing equation is established by considering the nonlinear term involving the centrifugal force.Lastly,it is truncated by the Galerkin method and analyzed semi-analytically using the multi-scale analysis method,and numerical simulations are carried out to compare the simulation results of finite elements with the numerical simulation results using Campbell diagram analysis of blade vibration.The results indicated that the rotational speed of the impeller has a significant impact on blade vibration.When the wheel speed of 12.1 rpm and excitation amplitude of 1.23 the maximum displacement amplitude of the blade has increased from 0.72 to 3.16.From the amplitude-frequency curve,it can be seen that the multi-peak characteristic of blade amplitude frequency is under centrifugal nonlinearity.Closed phase trajectories in blade nonlinear vibration,exhibiting periodic motion characteristics,are found through phase diagrams and Poincare section diagrams.

Thermal Analysis of Turbine Blades with Thermal Barrier Coatings Using Virtual Wall Thickness Method

Avirtual wall thicknessmethod is developed to simulate the temperature field of turbine bladeswith thermal barrier coatings(TBCs),to simplify the modeling process and improve the calculation efficiency.The results show that the virtualwall thickness method can improve themesh quality by 20%,reduce the number ofmeshes by 76.7%and save the calculation time by 35.5%,compared with the traditional real wall thickness method.The average calculation error of the two methods is between 0.21%and 0.93%.Furthermore,the temperature at the blade leading edge is the highest and the average temperature of the blade pressure surface is higher than that of the suction surface under a certain service condition.The blade surface temperature presents a high temperature at both ends and a low temperature in themiddle height when the temperature of incoming gas is uniformand constant.The thermal insulation effect of TBCs is the worst near the air film hole,and the best at the blade leading edge.According to the calculated temperature field of the substrate-coating system,the highest thermal insulation temperature of the TC layer is 172.01 K,and the thermal insulation proportions of TC,TGO and BC are 93.55%,1.54%and 4.91%,respectively.

Stiffness Degradation Modeling for Composite Wind Turbine Blades Based on Full-Scale Fatigue Testing

In order to provide more insights into the damage propagation composite wind turbine blades(blade)under cyclic fatigue loading,a stiffness degradation model for blade is proposed based on the full-scale fatigue testing of a blade.A novel non-linear fatigue damage accumulation model is proposed using the damage assessment theories of composite laminates for the first time.Then,a stiffness degradation model is established based on the correlation of fatigue damage and residual stiffness of the composite laminates.Finally,a stiffness degradation model for the blade is presented based on the full-scale fatigue testing.The scientific rationale of the proposed stiffness model of blade is verified by using full-scale fatigue test data of blade with a total length of 52.5 m.The results indicate that the proposed stiffness degradation model of the blade agrees well with the fatigue testing results of this blade.This work provides a basis for evaluating the fatigue damage and lifetime of blade under cyclic fatigue loading.

Research on the Follow-Up Control Strategy of Biaxial Fatigue Test of Wind Turbine Blade Based on Electromagnetic Excitation

Aiming at the drift problem that the tracking control of the actual load relative to the target load during the electromagnetic excitation biaxial fatigue test of wind turbine blades is easy to drift,a biaxial fatigue testingmachine for electromagnetic excitation is designed,and the following strategy of the actual load and the target load is studied.A Fast Transversal Recursive Least Squares algorithm based on fuzzy logic(Fuzzy FTRLS)is proposed to develop a fatigue loading following dynamic strategy,which adjusts the forgetting factor in the algorithmthrough fuzzy logic to overcome the contradiction between convergence accuracy and convergence speed and solve the phenomenon of amplitude overshoot and phase lag of the actual load relative to the target load.Combined with the previous research results,a simulation model was constructed to verify the strategy’s effectiveness.Field tests were carried out to verify its follow-up effect.The results showthat the tracking error of flapwise and edgewise direction iswithin 4%,which has better robustness and dynamic and static performance than the traditional Recursive Least Squares(RLS)algorithm.

Damage Identification of Wind Turbine Blades–A Brief Review

The increasing size of these blades of wind turbines emphasizes the need for reliable monitoring and maintenance.This brief review explores the detection and analysis of damage in wind turbine blades.The study highlights various techniques,including acoustic emission analysis,strain signal monitoring,and vibration analysis,as effective approaches for damage detection.Vibration analysis,in particular,shows promise for fault identification by analyzing changes in dynamic characteristics.Damage indices based on modal properties,such as natural frequencies,mode shapes,and curvature,are discussed.

Videometric research on deformation measurement of large-scale wind turbine blades

Utilization of wind energy is a promising way to generate power,and wind turbine blades play a key role in collecting the wind energy effectively.This paper attempts to measure the deformation parameter of wind turbine blades in mechanics experiments using a videometric method. In view that the blades experience small buckling deformation and large integral deformation simultaneously, we proposed a parallel network measurement(PNM) method including the key techniques such as camera network construction,c...

Geometric analysis of investment casting turbine blades based on digital measurement data

A turbine blade is one of the key components of the aero-engine. Its geometric shape should be inspected carefully in the production stage to ensure that it meets the tolerance specification. In the present paper, an approach for investment turbine blade geometric shape analysis based on multi-source digital measurement is presented. Its key technologies, such as measurement data collection, blade model reliable alignment, geometric shape deviation fast calculation and visualization, were investigated. Actual measurement data from a structure light measurement device and a Coordinate Measuring Machine(CMM) for turbine blades were used to validate the presented method. The experimental results show that the proposed method is accurate, quick and effective to implement.

Numerical simulation on vacuum solution heat treatment and gas quenching process of a low rhenium-containing Ni-based single crystal turbine blade

Numerical heat-transfer and turbulent flow model for an industrial high-pressure gas quenching vacuum furnace was established to simulate the heating, holding and gas fan quenching of a low rhenium-bearing Ni-based single crystal turbine blade. The mesh of simplified furnace model was built using finite volume method and the boundary conditions were set up according to the practical process. Simulation results show that the turbine blade geometry and the mutual shielding among blades have significant influence on the uniformity of the temperature distribution. The temperature distribution at sharp corner, thin wall and corner part is higher than that at thick wall part of blade during heating, and the isotherms show a toroidal line to the center of thick wall. The temperature of sheltered units is lower than that of the remaining part of blade. When there is no shelteration among multiple blades, the temperature distribution for all blades is almost identical. The fluid velocity field, temperature field and cooling curves of the single and multiple turbine blades during gas fan quenching were also simulated. Modeling results indicate that the loading tray, free outlet and the location of turbine blades have important influences on the flow field. The high-speed gas flows out from the nozzle is divided by loading tray, and the free outlet enhanced the two vortex flow at the end of the furnace door. The closer the blade is to the exhaust outlet and the nozzle, the greater the flow velocity is and the more adequate the flow is. The blade geometry has an effect on the cooling for single blade and multiple blades during gas fan quenching, and the effects in double layers differs from that in single layer. For single blade, the cooing rate at thin-walled part is lower than that at thick-walled part, the cooling rate at sharp corner is greater than that at tenon and blade platform, and the temperature at regions close to the internal position is decreased more slowly than that close to the surface. For multiple blades in single layer, the temperature at sharp corner or thin wall in the blade that close to the nozzles is much lower, and the temperature distribution of blades is almost parallel. The cooling rate inside the air current channel is lower than that of at the position near blade platform and tenon, and the effect of blade location to the nozzles on the temperature field inside the blade is lower than that on the blade surface. For multiple blades in double layers, the flow velocity is low, and the flow is not uniform for blades in the second-layer due to the shielding of blades in the first-layer. the cooling rate of blades in the second-layer is lower than that in the first-layer. The cooling rate of blade close to the nozzles in the first-layer is the higher than that of blade away from the nozzles in the second-layer, and the temperature distribution on blades in the same layer is almost parallel. The cooling rate in thin wall position of blade away from the nozzles is larger than that in tenon of the blade closer to the nozzles in the same layer. The cooling rate for blades in the secondlayer is much lower both in thin wall and tenon for blades away from the nozzles.

Multiscale modelling and simulation of single crystal superalloy turbine blade casting during directional solidification process

As the key parts of an aero-engine,single crystal(SX)superalloy turbine blades have been the focus of much attention.However,casting defects often occur during the manufacturing process of the SX turbine blades.Modeling and simulation technology can help to optimize the manufacturing process of SX blades.Multiscale coupled models were proposed and used to simulate the physical phenomena occurring during the directional solidification(DS)process.Coupled with heat transfer(macroscale)and grain growth(meso-scale),3D dendritic grain growth was calculated to show the competitive grain growth at micro-scale.SX grain selection behavior was studied by the simulation and experiments.The results show that the geometrical structure and technical parameters had strong influences on the grain selection effectiveness.Based on the coupled models,heat transfer,grain growth and microstructure evolution of a complex hollow SX blade were simulated.Both the simulated and experimental results show that the stray grain occurred at the platform of the SX blade when a constant withdrawal rate was used in manufacturing process.In order to avoid the formation of the stray crystal,the multi-scale coupled models and the withdrawal rate optimized technique were applied to the same SX turbine blade.The modeling results indicated that the optimized variable withdrawal rate can achieve SX blade castings with no stray grains,which was also proved by the experiments.

Fatigue Assessment Method for Composite Wind Turbine Blade

Fatigue strength assessment of a horizontal axis wind turbine(HAWT)composite blade is considered.Fatigue load cases are identified,and loads are calculated by the GH Bladed software which is specified at the IEC61400 international specification and GL(Germanisher Lloyd)regulations for the wind energy conversion system.Stress analysis is performed with a 3-D finite element method(FEM).Considering Saint-Venant′s principle,a uniform cross section FEM model is built at each critical zone.Stress transformation matrixes(STM)are set up by applied six unit load components on the FEM model separately.STM can be used to convert the external load into stresses in the linear elastic range.The main material of composite wind turbine blade is fiber reinforced plastics(FRP).In order to evaluate the degree of fatigue damage of FRP,the stresses of fiber direction are extracted and the well-known strength criterion-Puck theory is used.The total fatigue damage of each laminate on the critical point is counted by the rain-flow counting method and Miner′s damage law based on general S-N curves.Several sections of a 45.3mblade of a 2 MW wind turbine are studied using the fatigue evaluation method.The performance of this method is compared with far more costly business software FOCUS.The results show that the fatigue damage of multi-axis FRP can be assessed conveniently by the FEM-STM method.And the proposed method gives a reliable and efficient method to analyze the fatigue damage of slender composite structure with variable cross-sections.

Research on the Deformation of Turbine Blades at Machining

Along with the recent expansion of demand for electricity, the production of steam turbine blades has increased, and various materials forged of 12Cr ferritic heat-resistant types of steel have become widely used for this purpose. Although this material seems to be an excellent choice as heat-resistant steel, it requires a post-correction process for deformation after machining and thus lowers productivity. Therefore, we started basic experimental research, and through a series of tests, we found that 12Cr steel is a sticky material;the residual stresses after machining concentrate in the vicinity of the surface;and this influences the deformation of blades.

Research on Surface Defect Detection Technology of Wind Turbine Blade Based on UAV Image

In the background of“double carbon,”vigorously developing new energy is particularly important.Wind power is an important clean energy source.In the field of new energy,wind power scale is also expanding.With the wind turbine,the probability of large-scale blade damage is also increasing.Because the large wind turbine blade crack detection cost is high and because of the poor working environment,this paper proposes a wind turbine blade surface defect detection method based on UAV acquisition images and digital image pro-cessing.The application of weighted averages to achieve grayscale processing,followed by median filtering to achieve image noise reduction,and an improved histogram equalization algorithm is proposed and used for the characteristics of the UAV acquisition images,which enhances the image by limiting the contrast adaptive his-togram equalization algorithm to make the details at the target area and defects more clear and complete,and improves the detection efficiency.The detection of the blade surface is achieved by separating and extracting the feature information from the defects through image foreground segmentation,threshold processing,and framing by the connected domain.The validity and accuracy of the proposed method in leaf detection were verified by experiments.

Comparative Study on Tree Classifiers for Application to Condition Monitoring ofWind Turbine Blade through Histogram Features Using Vibration Signals: A Data-Mining Approach

Wind energy is considered as a alternative renewable energy source due to its low operating cost when compared with other sources.The wind turbine is an essential system used to change kinetic energy into electrical energy.Wind turbine blades,in particular,require a competitive condition inspection approach as it is a significant component of the wind turbine system that costs around 20-25 percent of the total turbine cost.The main objective of this study is to differentiate between various blade faults which affect the wind turbine blade under operating conditions using a machine learning approach through histogram features.In this study,blade bend,hub-blade loose connection,blade erosion,pitch angle twist,and blade cracks were simulated on the blade.This problem is formulated as a machine learning problem which consists of three phases,namely feature extraction,feature selection and feature classification.Histogram features are extracted from vibration signals and feature selection was carried out using the J48 decision tree algorithm.Feature classification was performed using 15 tree classifiers.The results of the machine learning classifiers were compared with respect to their accuracy percentage and a better model is suggested for real-time monitoring of a wind turbine blade.

Analogy Theory and Application of Pressure Difference of Wind Turbine Blade Profile

This paper aims to design an optimized blade for Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine(HWAT).Since airfoil is a basic component of blade design,an optimized airfoil(referred as SJX)was proposed based on the line theory through the weight analogy to pressure distribution of air flow.Its lift,drag,lift⁃to⁃drag ratio were compared with those NACA2409⁃34,NACA2410,and RK40 airfoils by using Profili software at fixed wind velocity and under different angles of attack.The NACA2409⁃34 airfoil was found to be greatly similar with the SJX airfoil.Based on the Wilson method,blades using SJX and NACA2490⁃34 airfoils were developed and different performance parameters such as velocity distribution,pressure distribution,and power were compared under variable wind velocities and different angles of attack ranging from-4°to 6°at different radius from the center of rotor using computational fluid dynamics(CFD)in ANSYS FLUENT.Results of the study suggested that the performance of the SJX based airfoil and blade was much more optimized.

Multi-Excitation Fatigue Testing for Large Full-Scale Wind Turbine Blade

In order to solve the problem of insufficient exciting force of equipment for large full-scale wind turbine blade fatigue testing,the influence of gravity on the performance of excitation equipment and fatigue damage evaluation of the different positions of wind turbine blades are analyzed.With the multi-excitation loading in the horizontal direction,the actuator force of the excitation equipment does not need to overcome the gravity of the dynamic mass,which directly outputs the exciting force of the system vibration.The excitation efficiency of the equipment is 77%higher than that of the vertical load.The gravity moment of the horizontal loading mode is perpendicular to the loading direction.That is,the mean load in the flapwise direction is zero.The weight of excitation equipment could replace the tuning mass on the condition that the self-weight of equipment is reduced by the multi-excitation mode,which helps the excitation equipment play the comprehensive function of excitation equipment and tuning mass.At the same time,the gravity moment in the edgewise direction will be decreased by 17.0%22.5%under the multi-excitation horizontal loading mode.In the vertical loading mode,the gravity moment is the mean load,which only increases fatigue damage accumulation by 15.6%.By comparing the role of gravity in the excitation equipment and fatigue damage evaluation,the multi-excitation horizontal loading mode has more advantage to performance the exciting force than the contribution of gravity to the fatigue damage accumulation in the vertical loading mode.Through the fatigue testing of multi-excitation horizontal loading,the potential of excitation equipment is explored,and the problem of insufficient exciting force in large full-scale wind turbine blade fatigue testing will be solved.

An Advanced Control Strategy for Dual-Actuator Driving System in Full-Scale Fatigue Test of Wind Turbine Blades

A new dual-actuator fatigue loading system of wind turbine blades was designed.Compared with the traditional pendulum loading mode,the masses in this system only moved linearly along the loading direction to increase the exciting force.However,the two actuators and the blade constituted a complicated non-linear energy transferring system,which led to the non-synchronization of actuators.On-site test results showed that the virtual spindle synchronous strategy commonly used in synchronous control was undesirable and caused the instability of the blade’s amplitude eventually.A cross-coupled control strategy based on the active disturbance rejection algorithm was proposed.Firstly,a control system model was built according to the synchronization error and tracking error.Furthermore,based on arranging the transition process,estimating the system state and error feedback,and compensating disturbance,an active disturbance rejection controller was designed by adopting the optimal control function.Finally,on-site test results showed that the cross-coupled control strategy based on the active disturbance rejection algorithm could ensure the synchronization of two actuators.The maximum speed synchronization error of the two motors was less than 16 RPM,the displacement synchronization error of the two actuators was less than 0.25 mm and approaching zero after 4 seconds,and the peak value of vibration of the blade was less than 5 mm,which satisfied the fatigue test requirement.

The Brief Introduction of Wuxi Turbine Blade Works

Wuxi Turbine Blade Works, one of the state big key enterprises, located at the developed Yangtze River delta, near beautiful Taihu Lake and ancient canal with long history, is a specialized manufacturer of all kinds of turbine blades. The works covers an area of 120,000 square metres with the floor space more than 100,000 square metres and 1200 odd employees, among which 363 are technical and managerial staffs, including

A Compact Laser Shearography System for On-Site Robotic Inspection of Wind Turbine Blades

Shearography is an optical technique in the field of nondestructive evaluation(NDE)of various materials.Its main advantages are that it is noncontact type and can cover a large area in a single inspection.As a result,although it has been widely acknowledged as an effective technique particularly for NDE of composite materials to detect subsurface defects such as delamination,disbond,cracks,and impact damages,the use of shearography for on-site inspection of wind turbine blades(WTBs)has not been reported.This is due to wind causing structural vibration in the WTB.The solution in this paper is to make the shearography sit on the WTB during inspection when the WTB is parked,so that the relative motion between the shearography and the WTB is minimized within the tolerance of the shearography system.The ultimate goal of the solution is to enable a robot-assisted shearography system to inspect the WTB on-site.This paper presents the research work on a new shearography design for integration with a robotic climber for on-site WTB inspection.The approach is tested and evaluated in experimental settings,and a comparative assessment of the approach with other robotic NDE techniques is carried out.The results demonstrate the potential benefits and suitability of the approach for on-site robotic inspection of WTBs.

The Third-Order Viscoelastic Acoustic Model Enables an Ice-Detection System for a Smart Deicing of Wind-Turbine Blade Shells

The present work is based on the third-order partial differential equation (PDE) of acoustics of viscoelastic solids for the quasi-equilibrium (QE) component of the average normal stress. This PDE includes the stress-relaxation time (SRT) for the material and is applicable at any value of the SRT. The notion of a smart deicing system (SDS) for blade shells (BSs) of a wind turbine is specified. The work considers the stress in a BS as the one caused by the operational load on the BS. The work develops key design issues of a prospective ice-detection system (IDS) able to supply an array of the heating elements of an SDS with the element-individual spatiotemporal data and procedures for identification of the material parameters of atmospheric-ice (AI) layer accreted on the outer surfaces of the BSs. Both the SDS and IDS flexibly allow for complex, curvilinear and space-time-varying shapes of BSs. The proposed IDS presumes monitoring of the QE components of the normal stresses in BSs. The IDS is supposed to include an array of pressure-sensing resistors, also known as force-sensing resistors (FSRs), and communication hardware, as well as the parameter-identification software package (PISP), which provides the identification on the basis of the aforementioned PDE and the data measured by the FSRs. The IDS does not have hardware components located outside the outer surfaces of, or implanted in, BSs. The FSR array and communication hardware are reliable, and both cost- and energy-efficient. The present work extends methods of structural-health/operational-load monitoring (SH/OL-M) with measurements of the operational-load-caused stress in closed solid shells and, if the prospective PISP is used, endows the methods with identification of material parameters of the shells. The identification algorithms that can underlie the PISP are computationally efficient and suitable for implementation in the real-time mode. The identification model and algorithms can deal with not only the single-layer systems such as the BS layer without the AI layer or two-layer systems but also multi-layer systems. The outcomes can be applied to not only BSs of wind turbines but also non-QE closed single- or multi-layer deformable solid shells of various engineering systems (e.g., the shells of driver or passenger compartments of ships, cars, busses, airplanes, and other vehicles). The proposed monitoring of the normal-stress QE component in the mentioned shells extends the methods of SH/OL-M. The topic for the nearest research is a better adjustment of the settings for the FSR-based measurement of the mentioned components and a calibration of the parameter-identification model and algorithms, as well as the resulting improvement of the PISP.