J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn.

151 (2016) 6069

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Wind Engineering

and Industrial Aerodynamics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jweia

Simulation of aeroelastic behavior in a composite wind turbine blade

Roham Raee a,n, Mojtaba Tahani b, Mohsen Moradi a,b
a
Composites Research Laboratory, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
b
Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Aeroelastic analysis of a full scale composite wind turbine blade is investigated using its 3D model.
Received 29 July 2015 Aerodynamic loading is determined using modied Blade Element Momentum theory and Computa-
Received in revised form tional Fluid Dynamics method is employed for verication. 3D nite element model of the blade is built
21 January 2016
and then FluidStructure Interaction iterative approach is constructed to investigate the aeroelastic
Accepted 23 January 2016
behavior. Inuence of deformation on power performance is determined implying on a reduction in
Available online 18 February 2016
output power. Susceptibility of dynamic instability is investigated and it is found out at high wind speed
Keywords: that the blade may experience instability.
Wind turbine blade & 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Composites
Aeroelasticity
Instability
Finite element analysis

1. Introduction instability is a self-excited phenomenon growing exponentially

Renewable energy studies have been growing rapidly due to
rising energy demand, nite fossil fuels and environmental con-
cerns. Wind energy is one of the fastest growing forms of clean
energy resources and this growth is set to continue so that, e.g.
over the past 5 years, US wind energy capacity increases from
25,000 MW to over 61,000 MW (American Wind Energy Associa-
tion, na). The emerging demand for electricity generation by
capturing wind energy stimulates industrial sectors to design and
manufacture horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) with larger
blades. Thus, both aerodynamic performance and structural ef-
ciency of the blade play important roles in economical power
generation. Satisfying complex design constraints consisting of
lower weight, high strength and proper resistance to the fatigue
phenomenon, blades of HAWTs are made of composites. Moreover,
employment of composite materials facilitates manufacturing
complicated geometrical shape of wind turbine blade dictated by
aerodynamical concerns. Previously, design problem of wind tur-
bine blades usually falls into either static or fatigue categories.
Recently, aeroelasticity analysis of a wind turbine blade is neces-
sarily taken into account during the design procedure due to their
exible and large structures. Neglecting aeroelasticity investiga-
tions on a wind turbine blade may not only lead to the over-
estimated output power of wind turbine, but also will ignore the
possibility of dynamic aeroelastic instability known as utter. This
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: roham.raee@ut.ac.ir (R. Raee).
(Bir and Jonkman, 2007). Classical utter is known as an aero-
elastic instability which occurs when the ow around the blade
work as negative damper. The utter speed for small wind turbine
has been determined to be about ve times the operating speed
(Lobitz and Veers, 1998) and for larger one this critical wind speed
is approximated two times the operating speed (Lobitz,
2004). Hansen (2007) studied the probability of aeroelastic
instability for stall-controlled wind turbines and pitch regulated
wind turbines. Risk of utter is experienced if four criteria are
satised including attached ow, high tip speeds, low stiffness and
aft center of gravity.
Performing a review on literature, it can be seen that limited
studies have been done on the aeroelasticity analysis of a full scale
wind turbine blade. Due to difculties in the modeling and ana-
lysis of a full scale wind turbine blade, majority of aeroelastic
analyses have been done on either two dimensional cross sections
of blades or blades with simple geometries (MacPhee and Beyene,
2011; Nguyen-Thanh et al., 2011; Thai et al., 2012; Valizadeh et al.,
2013; Krawczyk et al., 2013; Sarkar et al., 2009; Sarkic et al., 2015;
Miyata, 2002; de Miranda et al., 2013). MacPhee and Beyene
(2011) presented a morphing airfoil concept which passively
controls airfoil pitch through elastic deformation instead of power
control system to decrease cost and increase power production. In
their study 2D uidstructure interaction is used to determine
aeroelastic behavior of a 2D airfoil. Limitations of analytical
methods lead researcher to use numerical approach such as nite
element method (FEM) in different problems. Many studies have
been accomplished to closely link nite element analysis and
computer aided design (CAD) that results in accurate analysis of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2016.01.010
0167-6105/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069
the problems (Nguyen-Thanh et al., 2011). Recently, NURBS-based
isogeometric analysis has been carried out in vibration, utter
(Thai et al., 2012) and composite problems (Valizadeh et al., 2013).
Krawczyk et al. (2013) investigated a computational uid
dynamics (CFD)-FEM of a morphing airfoil including different
wind velocity regimes and Young's modulus of a blade material.
Fluidstructure interaction (FSI) approach is extensively not only
used in aeroelastic analysis of other structures like bridge (Sarkar
et al., 2009; Sarkic et al., 2015; Miyata, 2002; de Miranda et al.,
2013), airplane and building but also is executable in fracturing
structures (Rabczuk et al., 2000).
Carrin et al. (In press) performed aeroelastic analysis of
MEXICO and NREL wind turbines using CFD-CSD method. In this
research, ampwise and edgewise time domain vibrations and
frequencies of vibrations in different wind speed are determined.
Bergami and Gaunaa (2010) investigated divergence and utter
instability of a 2D airfoil section equipped with a trailing edge ap
which can be used in a wind turbine blade and dependency of
stability limits on the ap was reported. Liu et al. (2013) studied
the aeroelastic stability of laminated cross section of wind turbine
blades. The structural equation of motion with bendingbending
twist coupling is derived. In this study, occurrence of instability is
determined by means of time-marching and eigenvalue analy-
sis. Baxevanou (2008) predicted utter limits for an airfoil of wind
turbine blade in the time domain approach. Aeroelastic analysis
has been done implicitly and explicitly by integrating between
three degrees of freedom equations of motion and CFD analy-
sis. Lee et al. (2012) studied static aeroelasticity of a ber-
reinforced plastic (FRP) wind turbine blade and suggested three
methods to compensate reduction in power performance which
are the pre-twist angle, pitch control system and ber orienta-
tion. Lee et al. (2013) studied the application of bendtwist cou-
pled on performance of wind turbine. In their research, the
inuence of different parameters such as solidity, diameter of the
turbine and number of composite plies on annual energy and
thrust loading is determined, using FSI method. Chattot (2007)
simulated aeroelastic behavior of a wind turbine using vortex
method as aerodynamic analysis and exibility of the blade has
been determined for predicting forces and bending moments
along the blade. Raee and Fakoor (2013) have simulated static
aeroelasticy on a wind turbine blade by coupling CFD and nite
element analysis. They have reported that stress components vary
signicantly in the event of power production at the rated wind
speed which should be considered in fatigue analysis.
In this study, aeroelastic analysis of a composite wind turbine
blade is presented using full 3D modeling. Aerodynamic analysis of
the blade is carried out using modied blade element momentum
(BEM) theory in order to decrease the runtime. Drag force is
considered to obtain more accurate results. Verication of the
blade element momentum theory is done using CFD simulation.
Then, nite element model of the composite blade is constructed
in ANSYS commercial software. The blade element momentum
theory for analyzing aerodynamic loading on the blade is coupled
with structural solver of ANSYS analyzing both static and dynamic
aeroelastic behaviors of the blade.
2. Aerodynamic analysis
In addition to experimental aerodynamic of wind turbine
blades (Hand et al., 2001), theoretical aerodynamic analysis can be
categorized in four groups: Blade Element Momentum (BEM),
vortex method (Badreddinne et al., 2005), dynamic stall model
(Larsen et al., 2007) and CFD (Hsu et al., 2014; Bazilevs et al., 2011;
Sayed et al., 2012). Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory is
developed by equating aerodynamic loads applying on the turbine
61
blades to change of streamwise momentum across the wind tur-
bine. This model is not capable to predict aerodynamic behavior of
the wind turbine at high tip speed ratio and high solidity rotors.
But very efcient, acceptable results and low computational cost
have made it as a popular model in aerodynamic analysis of a wind
turbine (Borg et al., 2014). In vortex method (Badreddinne et al.,
2005; Borg et al., 2014) potential ow is assumed and each section
of the blade is replaced by a number of vortex laments. Vortex
model is more accurate because circulation that is shed from the
blade inuences the induced velocity of the blade, but it requires
high computational time (Borg et al., 2014). Dynamic stall is a
nonlinear aerodynamic phenomenon and observed when wind
turbine is subjected to time varying wind that uctuated blade.
Stall delay and hysteresis loop are their aerodynamic character-
istics. The mechanism of dynamic stall is complicated and it has
not been completely understood. Several empirical and semi-
empirical dynamic stall models are available for the wind rotor
aerodynamic analysis such as BeddoesLeishman model, ONERA
model and BoeingVertol model (Larsen et al., 2007; Wang, 2012).
CFD is a developing method in aerodynamic analysis of wind
turbine. This method is based on NavierStokes equations, has
potential to provide realistic simulation of the turbine ow eld
and can be used to solve the complex ow over the wind turbine.
The turbulence models like DNS, RANS or LES may be used in ow
simulation around wind turbine. In spite of accurate results from
CFD, this method has very high computational cost (Hsu et al.,
2014; Bazilevs et al., 2011; Sayed et al., 2012). Lanzafame et al.
(2013) investigated aerodynamic analysis of a wind turbine using
CFD and BEM. According to the experimental data, accuracy of
both methods is obtained while lower run time is required
for BEM method. Yang et al. (2014) presented application of BEM
theory without corrections on a wind turbine. But, airfoil data
including lift and drag coefcients are determined from 3D CFD
analysis of the wind turbine which are loaded in the BEM code.
Good agreement was obtained when compared with the experi-
mental data. Because of low computational cost and accurate
results, BEM is employed in most aerodynamic and aeroelastic
analysis of wind turbine blade. BEM method presented by Glauert
(1948) enables us to calculate the steady loads and power.
In order to determine aerodynamic forces along the blade
length BEM theory is programmed in MATLAB software. For the
verication of BEM method, its results are compared with those
obtained by CFD. To verify BEM results, CFD method is employed
and because of huge required computations, it is limited to four
wind speeds. Moreover, the obtained results from BEM are com-
pared with available at-site measurement for validation purpose.
The detailed procedure of BEM theory employed in this research is
explained in proceeding section.
2.1. Aerodynamic modeling
In this study, the V47660 kW wind turbine blade is selected as
a case study and required information of this turbine is presented
in Table 1.
From aerodynamic point of view, V47660 kW wind turbine
blade includes ve different airfoils which are FFA-W3, MIX, NACA
63600, NACA 63450 and NACA 63150. These ve types of air-
foil are presented in Fig. 1.
Because of aerodynamical and structural considerations, the
blade is twisted and tapered from its root to tip. The cross sections
of different airfoils along the blade length accompanied with
chord and twist distributions are shown in Fig. 2.
62 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069

2.2. BEM where pitch is the pitch angle and is the inow angle of
attack calculated as below:
BEM combines the Blade Element and one dimensional Va
Momentum theory. BEM is an engineering and quasi-steady arctan 2
V rot
method without considering turbulent inow and dynamic stall
phenomena. It should be pointed out that turbulence phenom- V a and V rot are induced velocities in the rotor plane that are
enon causes uctuations to the wind speed of the inow passing determined by means of axial and tangential induction factors:
through the turbine. This will lead to the time-varying wind speed V a 1 aV 0 3
(Wagner et al., 2010) required to be analyzed by unsteady methods
which is beyond the scope of this article. Kecskemety et al. V rot 1 a0 r 4
(Kecskemety and McNamara, 2016) investigated the effect of tur- The normal and tangential force coefcients are determined by
bulent inow on the aeroelastic behavior of a wind turbine using projecting lift and drag coefcients in corresponding directions
simple model and concluded that the wind turbine power is


C N C L cos C D sin 5
considerably inuenced by this phenomenon at higher wind
speeds.


C T C L sin  C D cos 6
In this method the wind turbine blades are divided into a
certain number of independent elements along the length of Finally axial and tangential induction factors are determined
blade. At each section, 2-D force equilibrium is developed con- as:
sidering produced torque and trust. At the same time momentum 1
balance for annular element is applied. Finally a set of equations a 7
4F sin 2
are derived that can be solved for each blade section. This method C N 1
is extensively explained in reference (Hansen, 2008). The airfoil
1
characteristics including lift and drag coefcients using BEM code a0 4F sin cos 8
are determined by means of XFOIL in which viscousinviscid CT 1
analysis methods have been integrated. XFOIL is a design and where is the solidity and dened as the fraction of the annular
analysis program which is used for subsonic isolated ow around area in the control volume covered by the blade. Prandtl presented
airfoil. It was rst developed by researchers at MIT as a design tool a correction factor F to axial and tangential induction factor to
for the MIT Daedalus project and then developed by Youngren correct the assumption of an innite number of blades (Hansen,
et al. (M. Drela, 2001). 2008):
Because of the rotational ow, the angle of attack at each sec-
2
tion of blade is determined as below: F cos  1 e  f 12

pitch  1
and
BR  r
Table 1 f 13
2r sin
V4760 kW wind turbine information.
Koh and Ng (2016) studied the effect of different tip correction
Operational data Rotor
factors on the accuracy of the BEM. They concluded that Prandtl's
Cut-in wind speed 4 m/s Diameter 47 m tip loss correction factor is more accurate than Goldstein's cor-
Rated wind speed 15 m/s Swept area 1735 m2 rection factor.
Cut-out wind speed 25 m/s Number of blades 3 Moreover, Glauert correction is considered when the axial
Rotational speed 28.5 rpm Maximum chord 2087 mm induction factor becomes large and momentum theory breaks
Rated power 660 kW Minimum chord 282.5 mm
down. The critical value for a is equal to 0.2 and for a 4 ac the

Fig. 1. Airfoil cross section of the blade.

 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069 63

Fig. 2. (a) Cross sections along the blade length (b) chord and twist distribution.

2 0.05
1.8
1.6 0.04
1.4
1.2 0.03
CL

CD

1
0.8 0.02
0.6
0.4 0.01
0.2
0 0
0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30
Radial Position (m) Radial Position (m)
Fig. 3. Aerodynamic coefcients along the blade length.

following equation is used: 3. Calculating local angle of attack (Eq. (1))

 q 4. Reading lift and drag coefcient from XFOIL
1 2

a 2 k1  2ac  k1  2ac 2 4 ka2c  1 15 5. Calculating axial and tangential induction factor (Eqs. (7) and
2
(8))
where: 6. If a is higher than critical value, update it using Eq. (15).
7. If estimated error of a and a0 are more than considered tol-
4F sin 2 erance, go to step 2 else go to next step
k 16
CN 8. Calculate aerodynamic forces
The following algorithm is applied independently to each sec-
tion for calculating aerodynamic loadings: Considering a tolerance of 1% in calculated power of wind
turbine as a convergence criterion of iterative procedure, 20 ele-
1. Initial guess for a and a0 ments are used to discretize the blade. Pressure distribution along
2. Calculating inow angle (Eq. (2)) blade length can be determined from aerodynamic coefcients.
64 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069

Inlet Periodic
Stationary Rotary

Fig. 4. Generated mesh for CFD simulation.

Table 2 800
Verication of BEM by CFD.
700
BEM Results
Wind speed (m/s) Power (kW) 600
Power (KW)

500 Real field

BEM CFD measurements
400
7 168 150
300
10 477 400
14 684 580 200
17 701 630
100
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Fig. 3 shows distribution of lift and drag coefcient along blade
Wind Speed (m/s)
length obtained from BEM theory.
Fig. 5. BEM and real eld measurements output power.

2.3. CFD
Table 3
The CFD simulation of the blade is accomplished by considering Mechanical properties of the blade materials (Shokrieh and Raee, 2006).
one blade with periodic boundary conditions. This will lead to a
Material Ex GPa Ey GPa xy Es GPa
considerable reduction in simulation. Fig. 4 shows the generated
mesh around the blade. Generally it has two different types of UD 43 9.77 0.32 3.31
mesh which are rotary and stationary parts and near the blade Biax 16.7 16.7 0.06 2.01
Triax 17.6 7.01 0.53 5.075
surface boundary layer mesh is utilized. The computations have
PVC 0.05 0.05 0.32 0.02
been done with 4,500,000 elements after performing grid study. PMI 0.066 0.066 0.32 0.025
SST k turbulence model is employed because of its capability in
predicting separation of the ow on the blade. This model also has
the advantages of both standard k near the wall and k model
away from the wall and considers the effect of free stream tur- Table 4
bulence and pressure gradients (Sayed et al., 2012). Natural frequency of the blade in apwise and edgewise directions.
The diameter of a cylindrical computation is chosen as two
Flapwise frequency (Hz) Edgewise frequency (Hz)
times of the rotor diameter. The one third of mentioned compu-
tational cylinder is simulated and extended along rotor axis, 5 and Finite element (3D) 1.103 1.85
10 times of the rotor diameter in upstream and downstream Experimental 1.09 1.97
regions, respectively. The selected dimensions in computational Error 1.2% 6%

domain avoid unfavorable boundaries dependency effect.

According to the turbulence model limitation (Benjanirat and
Sankar, na), the non-dimensional wall distance, y, is obtained
less than one. Thus, wall distance is calculated about 2.10  5 m. The
CFD analysis was carried out using a computer equipped with Intel
Core Duo 2 with 8 GB memory.
2.4. Verication and validation of aerodynamic analysis
A comparison between obtained results of BEM and CFD pre-
sented in Table 2 can be considered as the verication of
modied BEM.
 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069 65

Fig. 6. FSI algorithm.

Maximum Displacement (mm)

1800 1654 685

1600
1400 1455 1459 1458 1458 675

Power (KW)
1200
1000
665
800
600
400 655
200
0 645
0 1 2 3 4 5
Number of Iterations
635
0 1 2 3 4
Number of Iterations
Fig. 9. Power performance reduction arisen from aeroelasticity.

Fig. 10. Locations of aerodynamic centers and C.G's along the blade length.

investigated wind turbine in comparison with real eld mea-

Fig. 7. Static aeroelastic behavior of the blade (top), deformed and undeformed surement. This has been originated from neglecting all mechanical
blade (bottom). loss associated with gearbox, generator and other mechanical
devices. Moreover, the difference becomes more pronounced at
higher wind speeds which can be attributed to the turbulent
2000 inow.
1800
1600 Undeformed
Pressure (Pa)

1400 blade 3. Structural modeling

1200
1000 3D nite element (FE) model of the blade is constructed in
800 ANSYS commercial package. Shell99 is selected as an element type
600 Deformed
blade from ANSYS element database. The structural model consists of
400
upper and lower shells and internal spar. The former is responsible
200
for providing pressure distribution on the blade from aerodynamic
0
2 7 12 17 22 27 point of view and its cross sections are airfoil shaped, while the
Radial Position [m] later is a box shaped one accommodating loadings on the blade as
a structural element. The whole blade is connected to the hub by
Fig. 8. Effect of deformation on aerodynamic loadings.
root-joint which is a metallic part covered by composite laminated
internally and externally. A convergence study is carried out to
The BEM results can be examined by real eld measurements
obtain sufcient required number of elements resulted in 8505
which are reported by Vestas company (Vestas Wind Systems A/S, elements.
2002). As illustrated in Fig. 5, the BEM output power is in a very The investigated blade is constructed from pre-impregnated
good agreement with real eld measurements. As it can be seen materials in three forms of Tri-axial (Triax), Bi-axial (Biax) and
from Fig. 5, BEM method overestimates produced power of the Uni-Directional (UD). Triax represents a laminate with [0/ 745]
66 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069

1400 140
Flapwise Tip Displacement (mm)

Edgewise Tip Displacement (mm)

1200 120
100
1000
80
800 60
600 40

400 20
0
200
-20-2 8 18 28 38 48
0 -40
0 10 20 30 40
-200 -60
time (s) time (s)

0
Torsiona Tip Displacement (rad)

0 10 20 30 40
-0.001

-0.002

-0.003

-0.004

-0.005

-0.006
time (s)
Fig. 11. Dynamic response at the tip of the blade at the rated wind speed.

2000 Table 4 presents the results of obtained natural frequencies in

Flapwise displacement/t

1500 comparison with experimental values.

1000 The aforementioned examinations imply on a proper con-
500 struction of the 3D FE model for the investigated blade.
0
(mm/s)

-500200 400 600 800 1000

-1000
4. Fluidstructure interaction analysis
-1500
-2000
The developed modied BEM code is coupled with ANSYS
-2500
software and aeroelastic analysis of the blade is carried out as the
-3000
Flapwise displacement (mm) FluidStructure Interaction (FSI) analysis. Fig. 5 describes the
process of employed FSI analysis. Firstly, undeformed shape of the
Fig. 12. Phase plane response of the blade.
blade and corresponding primary angles of attack in different
sections is considered for extracting pressure distribution along
conguration and Biax presents [ 7 45] laminates. Two types of
foams as Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polymethacrylimide (PMI) the blade length using BEM code. Then, obtained pressure dis-
are used in the blade structure providing sandwich laminates. tribution is fed into ANSYS platform as the loadings for the stage of
These materials are utilized in shell and spar of the blade. Table 3 structural analysis. A new set of angles of attack for each and every
shows mechanical properties of introduced materials used in FE section is extracted on the basis of deformed shape of the blade.
analysis. These data are sent to the BEM code to update pressure distribu-
The weight of constructed FE model is obtained as 1262 kg tion, accordingly ( Fig. 6).
which is in a very good agreement with 1250 kg reported in
technical datasheets of the blade. Moreover, the location of Center 4.1. Static aeroelasticity
of Gravity (CG) is placed at 8374 mm measured from the root
which coincides very well with 8100 mm reported in technical According to the FSI algorithm and using static analysis in nite
data sheets presented by manufacturer. element software, static aeroelasticity behavior of the blade at
Free vibrations analysis is also employed to determine the rated speed is studied. Thanks to the large structure of the blade,
natural frequency of the blade in apwise and edgewise directions. nonlinear behavior arisen from large deformation can occur at
 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069 67

Flapwise Tip Displacement (mm)

Edgewise Tip Displacement (mm)

4000 400
3500
300
3000
2500 200
2000
100
1500
1000 0
500 0 10 20 30 40
-100
0
0 10 20 30 40
-200
time (s) time (s)

0
Torsional Tip Displacement (rad)

0 10 20 30 40
-0.002
-0.004
-0.006
-0.008
-0.01
-0.012
-0.014
-0.016
-0.018
time (s)
Fig. 13. Dynamic response at the tip of the blade at the cut-out wind speed.

4000 1400
Total Tip Displacement (mm)
Total Tip Displacement (mm)

3500
1200
3000
1000
2500
800
2000
600
1500
1000 400

500 200

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 -2 8 18 28 38 48
time (s) time (s)
Fig. 14. Total tip displacement at the shut-down (a) and rated (b) wind speed.

rated wind speed. Thus, prior to investigating aeroelastic behavior The results of performed FSI analysis for static aeroelasticity are
of the blade, a linear and nonlinear static analysis is performed to presented in Fig. 7 for ve iterations. It can be seen that after four
compare the results. The tip displacement of the blade at rated iterations, static convergence is obtained as the tip displacement
wind speed (15 m/s) is obtained by linear and nonlinear analysis as reports a plateau trend.
1654 and 1658 mm, respectively. Due to the negligible difference To obtain the effect of aeroelasticity phenomenon on aero-
dynamic loading and its consequence on the power performance
between these two values, linear analysis will be employed to
of investigated wind turbine, the pressure distribution with and
reduce computational cost of analysis.
without considering aeroelasticity is illustrated in Fig. 8.
68 R. Raee et al. / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 151 (2016) 6069
As shown in Fig. 8, at rated speed when the deformation of the
blade is taken into account for updating pressure distribution,
applied aerodynamic loading decreases. Subsequently, it causes
reduction in output power which is shown in Fig. 9.
4.2. Dynamic aeroelasticity
4.2.1. Susceptibility of instability
When the aerodynamic damping acts inversely, the surround-
ing ow around the blade applies more energy to the blade. If
structural damping cannot compensate vibrations of the blade, it
is probable for the blade to experience instability.
Hansen (2007) mentioned four issues increasing the risk of
instability in wind turbine blades as below:
1. Increase trend in lift forces
2. High tip speed to ensure sufcient energy in aerodynamic forces
3. Low values for torsional and apwise natural frequency which
will be resulted in low stiffness
4. The center of mass must lie after aerodynamic center along the
blade length (measured from leading edge)
The torsional and apwise natural frequencies for the investi-
gated blade are obtained as 19.137 and 1.103, respectively, using
FEA. Due to the signicant difference between these two values,
the coupling between torsional and bending vibrations is very less
likely to happen.
Aerodynamic center and center of mass for each and every
section of the blade is determined and shown in Fig. 10 along the
blade length. The centers of mass are always placed after aero-
dynamic center and it causes the blade at the risk of utter.
Since, the fourth issue mentioned by Hansen (2007) occurs for
investigated blade, in the next section, the dynamic response of
the blade is studied at both rated and cut-out wind speeds to
examine the occurrence of utter phenomenon. The main reason
of selecting rates and cut-out wind speeds is placed behind this
fact that these two wind speeds play important roles in design
procedure of wind turbine. At the cut-out state, wind turbine
experiencing maximum loading level and tip deection should be
investigated to avoid tip to tower collision. At the rated wind
speed, the maximum power generation is expected from turbine,
thus the deviation of turbine performance from its ideal perfor-
mance becomes an important issue.
4.2.2. Dynamic response
Dynamic aeroelasticity of the blade is studied using similar FSI
algorithm explained in the preceding section; however, transient
vibrations analysis is conducted instead of static analysis in the
structural module. Fig. 11 shows the dynamic responses at the tip
of the blade for apwise, edgewise and torsional directions and
total displacement at the rated speed. It is clear from these gures
that at this wind speed, vibrations of the blade are damped and no
instability is observed. Flapwise displacement of the blade is much
larger than the displacements in other direction, because of the
lower natural frequency in apwise direction leading to the lowest
stiffness among other directions. But, due to the very high stiffness
in torsional direction, corresponding displacement is lower than
apwise and edgewise ones.
The stability of the blade at the rated wind speed is illustrated
as phase plane response in Fig. 12. Phase response is determined at
the last ten seconds of time domain result and it is clear that
stability is approached from outside.
The dynamic response of the blade at the cut-out wind speed is
also determined and presented in Fig. 13. In this condition, the
vibrations of the blade in the three dimensions are damped and no
instability occurred.
The tip displacements of the blade in two different events of
normal shut-down (at cut-out wind speed) and power production
(at rated wind speed) are depicted in Fig. 14. Considering 4.2 m as
the tip to tower distance, it can be seen that the tip of the blade is
very close to the tower using dynamic analysis.
5. Conclusion
Due to the large and exible structure of wind turbine blades,
occurrence of aeroelastic instability is likely to happen. In order to
investigate aeroelastic behavior of the blade using FSI method,
aerodynamic and structural models should be constructed prop-
erly. Herein, because of low computational cost and accurate
results modied BEM theory is selected as an aerodynamic
method and programmed in MatLab. Verication and validation of
the BEM is performed by CFD analysis and real eld measure-
ments, respectively. A 3D nite element model of the composite
blade is constructed in ANSYS.
Both static and dynamic aeroelasticity are investigated by
coupling aerodynamic code and structural solver. In static aero-
elasticity analysis, the inuence of deformed blade on power
performance of the turbine is determined implying on reduction
in nominal power output. For dynamic investigation, rstly the
susceptibility of utter occurrence is investigated and then BEM
code is coupled with transient dynamic analysis of the blade
structure. The results reveal that vibrations of the blade are
damped at rated and cut-out wind speed, while the blade is sus-
ceptible to experience utter at cut-out wind speed.
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