the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 28 Dec 2025
A Multi-Parametric Composite Approach for the Optimization of Wind Turbine Blades using Double-Double Laminates
Abstract. As wind turbines scale to meet growing energy demands, blade structures face increasingly demanding performance requirements. This work addresses this challenge by extending the design space of composite blades through the substitution of traditional triaxial laminates with Double-Double (DD) laminates. While triaxial laminates are widely used due to their convenient layup and manufacturability, they are rarely scrutinized in literature and often lead to suboptimal structural performance. To enable this substitution, a multi-parametric composite modeling approach is developed and integrated into a gradient-based optimization framework. This architecture enables the coexistence of discrete and continuous laminate formulations within a single panel, allowing for detailed, skin-wise optimization of sandwich structures. The approach is applied to a modified blade design of the IEA-15-240 Reference Wind Turbine. Results demonstrate that DD laminates provide a more effective buckling-oriented design, resulting in significant mass savings in the shell structure.
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Status: open (until 13 Feb 2026)
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CC1: 'Comment on wes-2025-285', Alexander Krimmer, 18 Jan 2026
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AC1: 'Reply on CC1', Edgar Werthen, 20 Jan 2026
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Dear Dr. Krimmer,
thank you very much for taking the time to review our paper. We would like to address your two main concerns here to encourage you to continue the review. We will then, of course, respond to your valuable comments in detail.
Unfortunately, the conversion of the table with the material properties into LaTeX format was faulty. We sincerely apologise for this. The material properties were taken directly from this source and were also used correctly for the simulations in this paper. The correct table can be found in the appendix.
Below the table you find a picture which shows that Tsai’s criterion for homogenization is fulfilled for both Triax and our optimised DD laminates in case of four resp. two repetitions r. Since a DD laminate is defined by two angles (±φ, ±ψ), a Triax fabric is already a DD laminate: [+0,-0,+45,-45] = one repetition. The fulfilment of the Tsai criterion depends only on the number of repetitions and not on the individual ply thickness, as the criterion works with ABD* matrices normed by the laminate thickness. We have also created a small Excel tool which you can use to perform the calculations yourself.
According to our understanding of the literature on rotor blade optimisation, predefined layups are used and their thickness distribution is optimised, e.g. that of the shell and the main spar cap. The overall idea of this paper is to enlarge the design space by integrating the layer angles of the shell fabric into the optimization (optimization with DD laminates). Of course, this leads to fabrics that do not currently exist on the market, which in turn would be part of further research but we don’t increase the complexity of already established manufacturing processes.
We hope we have encouraged you to continue your review and thank you very much for your efforts. We would be very pleased to receive your full review and would like to work through the valuable comments and integrate them into the revised manuscript.
Kind regards,
Edgar Werthen
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AC1: 'Reply on CC1', Edgar Werthen, 20 Jan 2026
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Dear Authors,
thank you for the huge effort you took to write this paper. Unfortunately, some of the leading assumptions to my knowledge are not fitting rotor blade design procedures. I stopped my review at page 18 where the material properties used for the optimization and comparison are given. These are completely unrealistic and should not be used to assess one or the other design method. Please establish realistic material assumptions prior to re-evaluating the calculations. With the given values the research is irrelevant.
Best regards,
Alexander Krimmer