Effect of Spar Design Optimization on the Mass and Cost of a Large-Scale Composite Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

Mass and cost tradeoffs by deploying three optimized spars, made of all-glass, hybrid and all-carbon composites, applied to a publicly available large-scale composite blade of 100 m in length for a 13.2 MW wind turbine, are explored. The blade mass and cost minimizations are calculated for two design load cases, generating the worst aerodynamic loads for parked and rotating rotor blades, while meeting the stiffness, strength, stability and resonance design requirements, as recommended by the wind turbine standards. The optimization cases are formulated as a single-objective, multi-constraint optimization problem, while taking into account the manufacturability of hybrid spars in particular, and it is solved using a genetic algorithm method. The blade mass lowers in the range of 8.1–13.3%, 18.5–20.7% and 25.7–26.4% for the optimized all-glass, hybrid and all-carbon spars, respectively, while the cost decreases for the optimized all-glass spars only. The cost increases in a range of 1.2–13.6% and 24.5–31.5% when the optimized hybrid and all-carbon spars are used. Further, the hybrid spar optimization using the blade mass and cost objective functions, as well as the effects of spar optimization on the blade’s structural performance in terms of tip deflection, strength, buckling resistance and first natural frequency, are discussed.