Failure Analysis of Small Composite Sandwich Turbine Blade Subjected to Extreme Wind Load.pdf

Available online at Available online at Procedia Engineering Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1973–1981 /locate/procedia The Twelfth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction Failure Analysis of Small Composite Sandwich Turbine Blade Subjected to Extreme Wind Load C. P. Chen and T. Y. Kam* Mechanical Engineering Department, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan Abstract In this paper, the progressive failure process of composite sandwich wind turbine blades subjected to wind load is studied via both theoretical and experimental approaches. In the theoretical study, the wind pressure acted on the wind blade surface is estimated in an aerodynamic analysis. The stresses in the wind blade are determined using the finite element code ANSYS in which the skin and the core of the blade are modeled using shell and solid elements, respectively. A phenomenological failure criterion is adopted to predict the first-ply failure strength of the blade. After the occurrence of the initial failure, the material properties at the failure locations are modified following a material degradation rule. The updated stiffness matr