The Wiser Blade Knows When to Yield

Abstract

For newer and bigger turbine generations, it will in future be necessary to build rotor blades with a length of 100 metres and more. Using the conventional design used to date these would be too heavy and too slow to allow fast pitching. The SmartBlades project investigates what new rotor blades with innovative control approaches could look like. In order to reduce the strong loads that occur on the blades, future passive SmartBlades should warp around their own axis. Active SmartBlades should, analogous to moveable starting and landing aids on aircraft wings, change the geometry on the leading or trailing edge, thus reducing any loads that result, such as from inclined flow or turbulences. Whatever future wind turbines and their control approaches look like, rotor blades will play a pivotal role.