Design, fabrication, and testing of an active camber rotor blade tip

Abstract

This paper presents a morphing blade design for wind turbine application with flexibility in chord-wise bending while providing sufficient stiffness to carry the aerodynamic loads. The NACA64 profile is selected for the camber morphing blade demonstrator. A corrugation concept is chosen because it is relatively easy to manufacture and provides sufficient stiffness to resist deformation due to the aerodynamic loads (through the provision of effective stringers) while providing the required flexibility for chord-wise bending. A mechanical actuation mechanism is employed to achieve the desired morphing angle and increase the stiffness of the morphing airfoil section to resist aerodynamic loading. The design of a morphing blade demonstrator is presented together with the manufacturing process. Finally, an experimental study is conducted where the morphing angle is measured for increasing actuation load and compared with FE analysis showing good agreement between the experimental results and results from the finite element analysis in addition to achieving the desired morphing angle.