Stress Analysis of Composite Wind Turbine Blade with Different Stacking Angle and Different Skin Thickness

Wind turbine blade is the most important part of wind turbine; most of the blades are made from composite materials. The 5 MW wind turbine blade model used in this study is adopted from US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The finite element software ANSYS was used to analyze the stress distribution and deformation of wind turbine blade under various loads. The wind turbine blade is a sandwich structure made by carbon fiber cloth/epoxy composites as the outermost layer and the glass fiber/vinylester as inner layers, together with PVC foam as the core material. The composite stacking angle and skin thickness of wind blade were varied in the analysis. Four stacking angles in glass fiber/vinylester composites, [0 / 15 / 90 ] n n n s ± , [0 / 30 / 90 ] n n n s ± , [0 / 45 / 90 ] n n n s ± and [0 / 60 / 90 ] n n n s ± , were studied. The results show that the composite blade with [0 / 60 / 90 ] n n n s ± stacking angle in glass fiber/vinylester composites had a minimum stress and displacement. When varying the skin thickness of wind blade, both linear and optimal skin thicknesses can enhance the rigidity of blade, though increasing the weight of blade.