A rigorous, engineer‐friendly approach for modelling realistic, composite rotor blades

Abstract

Abstract A rigorous approach is presented for the modelling of composite beam structures of the type encountered in wind turbine blades, helicopter rotor blades and the like. The analysis methodology is based on a dimensional reduction of the geometrically nonlinear, three‐dimensional, anisotropic theory of elasticity. Small parameters stemming from the beam‐like geometry of slender structures such as wind turbine blades lead to a splitting of the problem into a (usually) linear, two‐dimensional cross‐sectional analysis and a geometrically exact nonlinear, one‐dimensional beam analysis. The incorporation of such beam analyses into flexible multibody codes presents a unified and powerful approach to the modelling of wind turbines with composite rotor blades. The generality and power of the methodology are illustrated in several examples. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.