Fatigue damage estimate comparisons for northern European and U.S. wind farm loading environments
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States). Wind Energy Technology Dept.
- National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States). Wind Technology Div.
Typical loading histories associated with wind turbine service environments in northern Europe and within a large wind farm in the continental US were recently compared by Kelley (1995) using the WISPER [Ten Have, 1992] loading standard and its development protocol. In this study, an equivalent load spectrum for a US wind farm was developed by applying the WISPER development protocol to representative service load histories collected from two adjacent turbines operating within a large wind farm in San Gorgonio Pass, California. The results of this study showed that turbines operating in the California wind farm experience many more loading cycles with larger peak-to-peak values for the same mean wind speed classification than their European counterparts. In this paper, the impact of the two WISPER-protocol fatigue-load spectra on service lifetime predictions are used to compare and contrast the impact of the two loading environments with one another. The service lifetime predictions are made using the LIFE2 Fatigue Analysis Code [Sutherland and Schluter, 1989] with the fatigue properties of typical fiber glass composite blade materials. Additional analyses, based on rainflow counted time histories from the San Gorgonio turbines, are also used in the comparisons. In general, these results indicate that the WISPER load spectrum from northern European sites significantly underestimates the WISPER protocol load spectrum from a US wind farm site; i.e., the WISPER load spectrum significantly underestimates the number and magnitude of the loads observed at a US wind farm site. The authors conclude that there are fundamental differences in the two service environments.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; FC36-86CH10311
- OSTI ID:
- 61142
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-94-2550C; CONF-950309-6; ON: DE95011061; TRN: AHC29516%%78
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 25. annual conference and exhibition on wind power, Washington, DC (United States), 26-30 Mar 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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