Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

General method for fatigue analysis of vertical-axis wind-turbine blades

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6169304

The fatigue life of wind-turbine blades, which are exposed to the random loading environment of atmospheric winds, is described with random data analysis procedures. The incident windspeed and the stresses caused by these winds are expressed in terms of probability density functions while the fatigue life vs. stress level relationship is treated deterministically. This approach allows the fatigue damage to be expressed as a function of wind speed as a damage density function. By examining some of the constraints on the variables in the damage density expression, some generalizations of the wind-turbine fatigue problem are obtained. The area under the damage density function is inversely related to total fatigue life. Therefore, an increase in fatigue life due to restricted operation in certain wind regimes is readily visualized. An on parameter which is the percentage of total time at each windspeed that the turbine actually operates is introduced for this purpose. An example calculation is presented using data acquired from the DOE 17-meter-turbine program.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
6169304
Report Number(s):
SAND-82-2543C; CONF-830631-2; ON: DE83012226
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English