Articles | Volume 7, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-19-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-19-2022
Research article
 | 
19 Jan 2022
Research article |  | 19 Jan 2022

Land-based wind turbines with flexible rail-transportable blades – Part 2: 3D finite element design optimization of the rotor blades

Ernesto Camarena, Evan Anderson, Josh Paquette, Pietro Bortolotti, Roland Feil, and Nick Johnson

Related authors

Land-based wind turbines with flexible rail-transportable blades – Part 1: Conceptual design and aeroservoelastic performance
Pietro Bortolotti, Nick Johnson, Nikhar J. Abbas, Evan Anderson, Ernesto Camarena, and Joshua Paquette
Wind Energ. Sci., 6, 1277–1290, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-1277-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-1277-2021, 2021
Short summary

Cited articles

ANSYS: Mechanical, Release 18.1, ANSYS Documentation, ANSYS, Inc., available at: https://www.ansys.com/ (last access: 14 January 2022), 2017. a
Berg, J., Paquette, J., and Resor, B.: Mapping of 1D beam loads to the 3D wind blade for buckling analysis, Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials and Co-located Conferences, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2011-1880, 2011. a
Berg, J. C. and Resor, B. R.: Numerical Manufacturing And Design Tool (NuMAD v2.0) for Wind Turbine Blades: User's Guide, Sandia National Laboratories, SAND2012-7028, https://doi.org/10.2172/1051715, 2012. a
Bertolini, P., Sarhadi, A., Stolpe, M., Eder, M. A., and Power, L. W.: Comparison of stress distributions between numerical cross-section analysis and 3D analysis of tapered beams, in: ICCM22 2019, Engineers Australia, Melbourne, VIC, 539–550, 2019. a
Bir, G. S.: Computerized method for preliminary structural design of composite wind turbine blades, J. Solar Energ. Eng., 123, 372–381, https://doi.org/10.1115/1.1413217, 2001. a
Short summary
The length of rotor blades of land-based wind turbines is currently constrained by logistics. Turbine manufacturers currently propose segmented solutions to overcome these limits, but blade joints come with extra masses and costs. This work investigates an alternative solution, namely the design of ultra-flexible blades that can be transported on rail via controlled bending. The results show that this is a promising pathway to further increasing the size of land-based wind turbines.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint