Benchmark Cases - Wind turbine blade

• ESAComp is capable of simulating rectangular, curved composite panels. These are suitable, for instance, for the preliminary design of wind turbine blades by applying axial in-plane loads and simply supported boundary conditions.

• Curved panels are defined in ESAComp by the main dimensions and the radius of curvature, whereas the lay-up is given by selecting a separately defined laminate object. Various load combinations and boundary conditions can be defined in the cylindrical coordinate system.

• ESAComp can be used for calculating the critical buckling load. With the determined load level, a load response analysis can be performed to estimate the strain levels.

• The benchmark case [1] involves the study of different approaches for the stability analysis of wind turbine blades. It shows that the simplified approach is feasible and slightly conservative. An isotropic material system was used for simplicity. The ESAComp results correlate extremely well with the published data



• Reference:
  [1] Gaudern N. and Symons D., Comparison of Theoretical and Numerical Buckling Loads for Wind Turbine Blade Panels, WIND ENGINEERING VOLUME 34, NO. 2, 2010 PP 193–206