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.

Lifetime Prediction of Wind Turbine Blade Based on Full-Scale Fatigue Testing

In order to predict the lifetime of products appropriately with long lifetime and high reliability,the accelerated degradation testing(ADT)has been proposed.Composite wind turbine blade is one of the most important components in wind turbine system.Its fatigue cycle is very long in practice.A full-scale fatigue testing is usually used to verify the design of a new blade.In general,the full-scale fatigue testing of blade is accelerated on the basis of the damage equivalent principle.During the full-scale fatigue test ing,blade is subjected to higher testing load than normal operat ing conditions;consequently,the performance degradation of the blade is hastened over time.The full-scale fatigue testing of blade is regarded as a special ADT.According to the fatigue failure criterion,we choose blade stiffness as the characteristic quantity of the blade performance,and propose an accelerated model(AM)for blade on the basis of the theories of ADT.Then,degradation path of the blade stiffness is modeled by using Gamma process.Finally,the lifet ime prediction of full-scale megawatt(MW)blade is conducted by combining the proposed AM and blade stiffness degradation model.The prediction results prove the reasonability and validity of this study.This can supply a new approach to predict the lifetime of the full-scale MW blade.