Structural design of offshore wind turbine blade spars
Résumé
The structural design of spars for horizontal axis wind turbine blades to achieve satisfactory levels of performance starts with the knowledge of aerodynamic forces acting on the blades. The present paper proposes a comparative study of the geometries of three spars designed for a 48 m long composite blade. The spars are evaluated under compression, bending loads as well as on free vibration. Different Subroutines have been developed and coupled with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software to analyze the mechanical performances and the qualities of each one of the three designed spars. In other words, it seeks not only to define the behavior and response of each one of the spars and the effect of composite materials on the improvement of the structure stiffness and weight, but also to determine the suitable spars type for the wind turbine blade and the results shows that the Box spars offers a compromise of the main parameters.