Structural Design, Analysis, and Testing of a 10 kW Fabric-Covered Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

Reducing the weight of a wind turbine blade is a major issue. Wind turbines have become larger in size to increase power generating efficiency. The blade has also grown in length to take more wind energy. A fabric-based wind turbine blade, introduced by General Electric Co., reduced the blade weight. In this study, a small fabric-covered blade for a 10 kW wind turbine was developed to verify structural ability. The blade was designed on the cross-section using variational asymptotic beam sectional analysis (VABS), structural analysis was carried out using MSC.Nastran for the design loads. A modal analysis was performed to compare the modal frequency and mode shapes. Static structural testing and modal testing were fulfilled. The analysis results were compared with the testing results. The fabric-covered structure was confirmed to reduce the blade mass with sufficient strength.