Numerical analysis of stress and modal responses of H-type VAWT blade under operational loads conditions

Abstract

Wind turbine operates in harsh natural environment, and large cyclic loading will cause significant damage on the blade structure. Therefore, it is important to understand the structural behavior of this blade structure for a proper design. This paper presents an investigation of structural response of 3-KW composite blade for H-type vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). The blade is modeled and simulated by using SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2020 software. FEA (Finite element analyses) are conducted to investigate the stress analysis (stress and displacement) and modal characteristics (natural frequency and associated mode shapes) of blade structure. The blade design takes into account of three constraints: stress, displacement, and vibration. The results show that the maximum stress is 39.17% lower than the allowable stress, the maximum displacement is 95.1% lower than the allowable deformation, and the first mode frequency of the blade is 67.8% higher than the allowable tolerance. These results demonstrate that the blade structure meets the static design requirement, remaining unaffected by resonance phenomena, and moves in a stable way during the different phases of the wind turbine operation.