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Stress states investigation of adhesive bonded joint between spar cap and shear webs of a large wind turbine rotor blade

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Abstract

The debonding failure at the adhesive bonded joints between spar caps and shear webs is one of failure modes of the wind turbine rotor blades. To avoid such a failure, the numerical investigation of stress states at the adhesive bonded joints is important to assess the structural integrity of a rotor blade subjected to the extreme bending moments. In this paper, the simplified stress state calculation method was derived based on the multiaxial stress states of shear webs computed from the linear elastic composite analysis from ANSYS 19.2. From the close investigation of a small blade and a large blade, it turned out that the care must be taken evaluating stresses of a large blade with double shear webs than a small one with a single web. In case of a large blade, the adhesive structure between spar cap and a shear web close to an aft shear web (ASW) showed higher stresses compared to the adhesive part located to a forward shear web (FSW). Especially, the out-of-plane stresses of the adhesive at ASW were increased toward the outboard region of a blade, while the stress level of the adhesive at FSW was almost constant along the blade length, which is similar to a single shear web case of a small blade (< 25 m). It indicates the higher peeling failure possibility at the interface between the adhesive and an ASW when blade size is increased.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Brain Pool Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (grant number: 2019H1D3A2 A02102093), Korea. In addition, this study has been also supported by National R&D Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (grant number: 2020R1G1 A1099560), Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Floating Offshore Wind Energy System, University of Ulsan, Ulsan, 44610, Korea

    Kwangtae Ha

  2. Mechanical Engineering, Gachon University, Seongnam, Gyeonggido, 13120, Korea

    Jae-Ho Jeong

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  1. Kwangtae Ha
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Correspondence to Jae-Ho Jeong.

Additional information

Kwangtae Ha is a Research Professor of the Floating Offshore Wind Energy System Engineering Department, University of Ulsan, He earned a Ph.D. at the Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005. His employment experience included the Groen Brothers Aviation, Caterpillar, Samsung Heavy Industry, Korea Aerospace Industry, and Fraunhofer Institute of Wind Energy System in Germany. He lead the 7MW Offshore Wind Turbine Development and also played a key role in Future Rotor Blade Concept Project at Fraunhofer IWES. His current research is a smart blade development for offshore wind turbine with composite structure tailoring and active materials.

Jae-Ho Jeong was born in Cheongju in the Republic of Korea, on September 27, 1982. He obtained his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyushu University in Japan, until 2010. He had worked at Samsung Heavy Industries until Aug. 2013, and had worked at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute until Feb. 2020. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gachon University in Korea. His current researches of interest are CFD and plant system transient analysis in the fields of renewable, nuclear, and hydrogen energy.

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Ha, K., Jeong, JH. Stress states investigation of adhesive bonded joint between spar cap and shear webs of a large wind turbine rotor blade. J Mech Sci Technol 35, 2107–2114 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-021-0426-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-021-0426-2

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