Abstract
About this talk
The increasing demand for renewable energy has led to the development of larger wind turbine blades, which are exposed to severe combined mechanical and environmental loading. An integrated approach is developed for the stress, failure, and reliability analysis of laminated composite structures under coupled hygro-thermo-mechanical loading. A rectangular laminated composite plate is adopted as an idealised representative section of a wind turbine blade, allowing the ply-level response of the blade laminate to be investigated while avoiding the geometric complexity of the full blade structure. Ply-by-ply stresses are evaluated through the laminate thickness in both global (x, y) and local (1, 2) coordinate systems. The Tsai–Hill failure criterion is used to assess ply-level performance and identify critical plies. When the required reliability conditions are not satisfied, a material substitution strategy is proposed, replacing overstressed glass and/or carbon fibres with continuous carbon nanotube (CNT) fibres. The proposed approach provides a basis for improving the structural performance, reliability, and material efficiency of composite wind turbine blades subjected to combined mechanical and environmental loading.
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