Effects of environmental exposure on the mechanical properties of composite tidal current turbine
Abstract
In order to meet the growing demand for energy and also to fight against global warming, Renewable Marine Energies (RME) appeared as a great opportunity for a real ecological and industrial choice. Tidal current turbines are used to extract this energy and installed on the seabed at locations where the nozzle can be prone to the accidental impact and critical loads. The principal objective of this research is to investigate the effects of environmental exposure on the mechanical properties of composite tidal current turbine, the most advanced features currently available in finite element (FE) Abaqus/Explicit have been employed to simulate the behavior of the composite nozzle under static and dynamic loading conditions. To investigate this situation, a parametric analysis is conducted which deals with the effect of velocity and geometry of the impactor. The mechanical behavior has been analyzed as both kinematic effect due to deflection of the composite structure and dynamic effect caused by the interaction between the impactor and the hydrodynamic and hydrostatic pressures over the loading. The stress and the deformation distribution are presented. On the other hand, damage modeling was formulated based on Hashin criteria for intra-laminar damage. This has been accomplished by forming a user-created routine (VUMAT) and executing it in the Abaqus software.