The Development of A Fatigue Loading Spectrum For Small Wind Turbine Blades

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Journal of Wind Engineering

and Industrial Aerodynamics 94 (2006) 207–223
www.elsevier.com/locate/jweia
The development of a fatigue loading spectrum for

small wind turbine blades
Jayantha A. Epaarachchia,, Philip D. Clausenb
a
James Goldston Faculty of Engineering & Physical Systems, Central Queensland University,
Bruce Highway, Rockhampton QLD 4701, Australia
b
Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Newcastle, University Drive,
Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia
Received 21 September 2005; received in revised form 22 December 2005; accepted 22 December 2005
Available online 28 February 2006
Abstract
This paper details a formulation to create a fatigue loading procedure for the blade of a small wind
turbine using a combination of detailed short-term aeroelastic and wind measurements and averaged
long-term wind data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Detailed aeroelastic measurements
from the blade of an operating small wind turbine were acquired simultaneously with wind speed
measurements and show that the blade does not respond instantaneously to all changes in wind
speed. A methodology has been developed to create a fatigue loading procedure using the blade stress
cycles determined from the detailed measurements in conjunction with long-term wind data. The
proposed method overcomes the necessity to acquire long-term detailed operational data before
developing a blade fatigue loading procedure without compromising on accuracy.
r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Wind data; Weibull analysis; Rainflow counting
1. Introduction
Over the past 10 years or so, the Wind Energy Group at The Newcastle University has
been involved with the design and manufacture of blades for small wind turbines. To date
the Group has built blades for 600 W, 5 kW and 20 kW machines corresponding to blade
lengths of 1, 2.5 and 5 m, respectively [1]. After finalizing the aerodynamic design of any
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 4930 9545; fax: +61 7 4930 6984.
E-mail address: j.epaarachchi@cqu.edu.au (J.A. Epaarachchi).
0167-6105/$ - see front matter r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.jweia.2005.12.007
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208 J.A. Epaarachchi, P.D. Clausen / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 94 (2006) 207–223
Nomenclature
a, b Weibull shape and scale parameters

n number of occurrences
N number of fatigue causing cycles
C constant
R stress ratio ( ¼ smin/smax)
m1, m2 indexes
V, v wind velocity
s stress
new blade, its structural design needs to be considered to ensure it can withstand all likely
loading during service. The stochastic nature of wind means that the blade will experience
a significant number of fatigue cycles over its nominal lifespan of 20 years. As a
consequence, a suitable fatigue analysis must be undertaken in the structural design stage
to ensure the blade has adequate life, and if possible, verify this by a physical test [1]. The
International Standard IEC 1400-2 [2] recommends that during the design stage of the
blade, only the load cycles close to the rated wind speed of the turbine be considered in the
fatigue calculations. Furthermore, given that the turbine can operate at any location in the
world, the fatigue test procedure should be developed from data acquired at a location
with reasonably severe wind conditions.
Wind turbine blades experience a range of forces throughout their working life including
steady, transient, and alternating forces. Steady forces—forces due mainly to blade
rotation and aerodynamic loading in steady wind—do not lead to fatigue of the blade
structure. The major transient forces are aerodynamic in nature and due to the unsteady
nature of wind whilst the alternating forces are mostly due to gravity, mass imbalance and
gyroscopic forces, (Eggleston and Stoddard [3]). Both the alternating and transient forces
contribute to fatigue in the blade structure. Accounting for the effects of steady forces is
reasonably straightforward; accounting for the effects of transient and alternating forces is
more involved as each load cycle results in damage to the blade structure, which
accumulates throughout the life of the blade. Fitzwater and Winterstein [4] reported that
the structural response of large wind turbine blades loosely follows the wind velocity
spectrum. The response of the blade at any given steady wind speed can be determined by
finite element analysis as long as the aerodynamic loading on the blade is known [1,5].
A major drawback in the fatigue analysis and full-scale fatigue testing of small wind
turbine blades is the unavailability of a suitable standard fatigue loading spectrum. For
large wind turbines a suitable fatigue loading spectrum called WISPER/WISPERX is
available [6]. This spectrum was developed from operational data obtained from large
wind turbines and as such is not likely to be directly suitable for small wind turbines due to
the difference in both size and operational parameters. Sutherland [7] has reviewed the
available fatigue loading models for wind turbines, highlighting the importance of
statistical analysis on data as well as the use of rainflow counting methods. Lange and
Winterstein [8] have proposed a three-moment-based quadratic Weibull load distribution
to overcome some deficiencies found in the standard Weibull models. Here they
incorporated the rainflow counted data that includes both turbulence and wind velocity
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J.A. Epaarachchi, P.D. Clausen / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 94 (2006) 207–223 209
into a model by a power-law-type relationship. Also the Weibull distribution of the wind
spectrum was an input into the model. They claimed that this new model is better than
their earlier four-moment model. Noda and Flay [9] described a procedure to develop a
flapwise fatigue loading spectrum by simulation. Here a cumulative fatigue damage
module was incorporated in their simulation model to estimate the damage caused in the
blade root of a rotor from a diameter of 27 m wind turbine. A synthetic wind spectrum was
generated to use with blade element theory (BET) to calculate the structural response of
the blade. They assumed that the blade instantaneously responds to the resultant loading
condition and included turbulence intensity and wind shear effects into the final fatigue
loading spectrum. The final loading spectrum was rainflow counted and binned under
stress levels only.
It is well known that the wind velocity distribution is stochastic in nature. Castino et al.
[10] have successfully modelled wind velocity–time series using Markov chain model and a
discrete auto regression model of order 2 using 3-h wind data acquired over a 42-year
period. It is desirable that wind data for wind turbine design be acquired in 10 min samples
over a period of 50 years at the particular area of concern, according to European wind
turbine standards/non-nuclear energy-JOULE II [11]. However, the cyclic nature of the
wind velocity distribution typified by the yearly repetitive pattern of weather allows us to
model it quickly and reliably using statistical analysis methods. It is generally accepted that
the wind velocity distribution can be accurately represented by a Weibull distribution
function. Wind energy devices like wind turbines operate in moderate to low wind
conditions, (5 m/spvp20 m/s), and these operational wind regimes have been successfully
represented using a Weibull distribution [12]. As such it is reasonable to assume that a
minimum of 1 year of wind data will be sufficient to predict generalized yearly wind
regimes at any location.
2. Dynamic response of a 2.5 m wind turbine blade
The Wind Energy Group had a prototype 5 kW wind turbine at Fort Scratchley,
Newcastle, which is located within 300 m of one of the windiest meteorological wind
station in New South Wales, Australia. Details about the turbine can be found in Bechly et
al. [13]. Here it is sufficient to note that one of the turbine’s 2.5 m long composite blades
was instrumented with strain gauges with signals acquired in azimuthal mode at eight times
per revolution. Simultaneous with acquiring these signals were analogue signals acquired
once per revolution including those representing wind speed and direction, turbine
direction and battery power. All acquired data were extensively post-processed to explore
aspects like the cyclic variation of blade deflection and root bending moments. For the
work described in this paper, of primary interest from these results is the aeroelastic
response of the blade with respect to wind speed.
Fig. 1 shows the variation in the signals from two strain gauges located close to the blade
root along with wind speed for a typical period of turbine operation. As can be seen, the
strain gauge signals loosely follow the wind profile. The blade’s instantaneous response,
however, appears not to follow all instantaneous changes in wind speed. The response
appears to be damped, possibly due to blade inertia and material damping. If the blades
were to respond to all instantaneous changes in wind speed whilst operating at constant
aerodynamic efficiency, then the variation in strain gauge signals would be significantly
larger than those measured [1]. From a fatigue viewpoint, this blade would accumulate
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15 1400
14 1300
13 1200
Gauge Tri - 1
Strain (micro-strain)
12
Wind Velocity (m/s)
1100
11
1000
10
Wind Velocity (m/s) 900
9
800
8
700
7 Gauge Tri - 2
6 600
5 500
80 90 100 110 120 130
Time (Sec)
Fig. 1. Blade response and measured wind velocity. Gauge Tri-1 located at blade root and gauge Tri-2 300 mm
from blade root.
more damage than a ‘‘real’’ blade, and so, if adopted would give a conservative indication
of blade lifespan.
3. Wind data analysis
There are two types of wind data available for this study: a limited amount of total wind
time history data, including both wind velocity and direction, acquired simultaneously
with strain gauge data from the blade and wind turbine operational data from the Fort
Scratchley turbine, and long-term averaged data from the Australian Bureau of
Meteorology (BOM) at a number of sites throughout Australia. Wind data from BOM’s
wind data bank consists of the maximum and mean wind speed, mean wind direction,
temperature, visibility and rainfall over a 30 min time increment. For each of these time
increments, however, data were only acquired and averaged over a 10 min period. These
averaged data miss most of the fatigue cycles and cannot be used solely to develop a fatigue
loading spectrum. Conversely, the detailed data available are only for a short term and do
not allow a realistic loading spectrum to be developed over a range of wind speeds. In this
paper, we propose a technique of combining the short-term detailed data with the long-
term averaged data, and use these combined data to develop a fatigue loading spectrum for
the 2.5 m-long wind turbine blade.
3.1. BOM wind data analysis
3.1.1. Analysis of wind velocity spectrum

Wind data were obtained from BOM’s wind data bank for 18 stations located
throughout the continent. Table 1 shows the location of each data station within each
state. These data were processed to count the occurrences of wind velocities and binned
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Table 1
Meteorological wind data stations considered in this study
State Station
New South Wales Sydney Airport

Tamworth Airport
Williamtown Airport
Australian Capital Territory Canberra Airport
Queensland Longreach Airport
Townsville Airport
Weipa Airport
South Australia Adelaide Airport
Woomera Airport
Tasmania Hobart Airport
Strahan Airport
Victoria Melbourne Airport
Mildura Airport
Western Australia Albany Airport
Kalgoorlie–Boulders Airport
Port Headland Airport
Northern Territory Darwin Airport
Tenant Creek Airport
into 1 m/s wide bins for speeds between 1 and 20 m/s. The extracted wind data were then
fitted to a Weibull distribution and a statistical analysis was performed.
The Weibull probability density function (PDF) for wind velocity, v, is given by
a a
PDF ¼ a va1 eðv=bÞ , (1)
b
where a is a shape parameter and b is a scale parameter which can be obtained graphically
[14].
It can be shown that [14]
1 X
lnðvÞ ¼ ln lnð1 ðn 0:4Þ= n þ 0:2 þ lnðbÞ, (2)
a
where n is the cumulative number of occurrences of wind velocity less than v.
The wind velocity distribution at a particular station was established to a reasonable
level of accuracy using 1 year of BOM wind velocity data [1]. Fig. 2 shows an example of a
method for calculating a and b by graphical means for Sydney Airport BOM wind data.
Fig. 3 shows the fitted Weibull curve for these data for the year of 1998 and Table 2 shows
the calculated values for a and b and general statistics for each BOM data station.
3.1.2. Rainflow counting of wind velocity spectrum

A cyclic change in wind speed creates a blade fatigue stress cycle. Since the worst case
loading condition occurs when the blades’ response follows the wind profile, by rainflow
counting the wind velocity spectrum and substituting the relevant stress values for each
binned wind velocity, all fatigue-causing cycles in normal turbine operating mode can be
estimated. Here the corresponding stress value at the most critical section of the blade for a
particular velocity was determined from a finite element analysis of the blade. Once done,
the fatigue cycles are binned under the maximum stress and corresponding stress ratio R, R
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3.5
y = 2.1244 + 0.54185x R = 0.99786

a = 1.85 and b = 8.37
3
2.5
ln (V)
1.5
0.5
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
ln(-ln(1-(n-0.4)/(Σn+0.2))
Fig. 2. Weibull probability plot for wind data of Sydney Airport for the year 1998.
0.14
Relative Frequency Density
0.12
Weibull PDF
a = 1.85 and b = 8.37

0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Wind Velocity (m/s)
Fig. 3. Weibull PDF curve and relative frequency density for Sydney Airport for the year 1998.
minimum stress/maximum stress, for a given wind speed ranging from R ¼ 0 to R ¼ 0:9
in steps of 0.1. Fig. 4 shows schematically the transformation of wind data into relevant
stress data. All 18 BOM data files for the year of 1998 were rainflow counted. Calculated
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Table 2
Statistics of BOM wind data samples
Station Wind velocity (m/s) s COV Skewness Kurtosis Weibull parameters
Max. Mean a b
Canberra_APa 21.09 6.2 3.384 0.54572 0.932612 3.58096 2.03 7.15

Sydney_AP 31.38 7.5 4.1 0.5396 0.892442 3.65384 1.85 8.37
Tamworth_AP 28.81 5.32 2.9 0.5443 1.5204 6.22049 2.03 6.15
Williamtown_AP 30.86 4.7 3.37 0.71699 1.32846 5.93144 1.51 5.24
Darwin_AP 23.15 5.5 2.53 0.46284 1.12509 5.28849 2.39 6.32
Tenant Ctreek_AP 22.12 7.3 3.13 0.4255 0.48391 2.92502 2.60 8.35
Longreach_AP 31.38 6.01 2.83 0.44708 1.06073 5.28176 2.34 6.93
Townsville_AP 22.12 6 2.77 0.45925 0.813121 3.93672 2.42 6.96
Weipa_AP 19.03 5.81 2.87 0.49356 0.687067 3.00448 2.25 6.68
Adelaide_AP 18 4.3 2.56 0.59411 0.798344 3.25509 1.89 5.05
Woomera_AP 29.32 7.3 3.18 0.43686 0.948804 4.24384 2.51 8.30
Hobart_AP 26.24 7.1 3.9 0.54606 0.881978 3.59356 2.01 8.16
Strahan_AP 27.78 8 4.59 0.57479 0.769753 2.83632 1.91 9.12
Melbourne_AP 31.9 7.1 4.08 0.57407 0.996511 3.76791 1.92 8.15
Mildura_AP 20.6 5.8 2.7 0.46899 1.00156 4.13775 2.37 6.65
Albany_AP 22.12 6.6 3.07 0.46605 0.753545 3.34662 2.38 7.55
Kalgoorlie_Boulders_AP 23.15 6.6 2.81 0.429114 0.653542 3.47193 2.59 7.50
Port_Headland_AP 26.75 6.6 3.24 0.488254 0.784152 3.5696 2.26 7.61
a
AP—Airport.
v1 v1
σ1 σ1
R = σ2/σ1 σ2
v2
A wind cycle at maximum wind Corresponding stress cycle
velocity v1 m/s (v1>v2) on the blade (σ1 - σ2 - σ1)
(v1 - v2 - v1)
Fig. 4. Transformation of a wind cycle to a corresponding stress cycle on the blade.
values for mean, standard deviation (STD), covariance (COV) and skewness are shown in
Table 3 for Sydney Airport, with Figs. 5 and 6 showing the Weibull fits for stress for
Sydney Airport data for R ¼ 0:1.
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Table 3
Statistical parameters for Sydney Airport binned data (year 1998)
R a b Mean STD COV Skewness
0 14.6931 146.92 141.78 11.82 0.01 0.78

0.1 3.01 76.76 68.56 24.84 0.13 0.16
0.2 1.5 43.24 39.03 26.5 0.46 1.07
0.3 1.522 48.59 43.79 29.33 0.45 1.05
0.4 1.1289 34.9 33.4 29.64 0.79 1.67
0.5 1.133 31.94 30.53 27 0.78 1.66
0.6 0.854 20.24 21.96 25.8 1.38 2.54
0.7 0.8795 23.24 24.77 28.24 1.30 2.43
0.8 1.4313 44.5 40.42 28.66 0.50 1.16
0.9 1.973 62.89 55.75 29.5 0.28 0.65
5
y = 4.3407 + 0.33263x R = 0.99473
a = 3.01 and b = 76.76
4.5
ln (σ)
3.5
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2
c4 = ln(-ln(1-(σ − 0.4)/∑n+0.2))
Fig. 5. Weibull probability plot for stress for Sydney Airport data (Year 1998), binned under R ¼ 0:1.
The cycles for each R also closely follow a Weibull distribution, so the maximum
number of cycles can be calculated as follows:
Possible cycles in the stress range

Z s2
s1 osos2 ¼ f ðsÞ ds N Total at R . ð3Þ
s1
To finalize the Australian maximum cycles, the maximum number of cycles for each
stress value and at each R was selected from 18 BOM stations. Generally the total cycles
extracted from rainflow counting for each BOM station was in the range of 1800–3300
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0.025
Relative Probability Density
PDF
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0 50 100 150 200 250
σ (max)
Fig. 6. Weibull curve fit for stress for Sydney Airport data (year 1998), binned under R ¼ 0:1.
0.025
RPDF
PDF
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
σmax (MPa)
Fig. 7. Weibull fit for stress for Australian maximum cycles from BOM data binned at R ¼ 0:1.
cycles. After the Weibull analysis, the total number of cycles estimated is 6077, an increase
of 84% from the extracted cycles before the statistical analysis. Fig. 7 shows the Weibull fit
for the binned data at R ¼ 0:1.
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3
y = 1.9537 + 0.37438x R = 0.9979
2.5
2
ln (v)
1.5
0.5
0
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4
ln(-ln(1-(v - 0.4)/∑n+0.2))
Fig. 8. Weibull probability plot for 0.5 Hz wind velocity data from Fort Scratchley for the year 1998.
0.16

0.14
PDF
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Wind Velocity (m/s)
Fig. 9. Weibull curve fit for Fort Scratchley wind velocity data set for the year 1998.
3.2. Analysis of 0.5 Hz wind data
Wind data captured at 0.5 Hz from the Fort Scratchley turbine were analysed and Fig. 8
shows the data fit to determine the Weibull factors and Fig. 9 shows the Weibull curve fit
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Table 4
Statistical parameters for wind data set from Fort Scratchley test turbine site
Parameter Value
a 2.6711
b 7.0547
Mean 6.27
STD 2.53
COV 0.16264
Skewness 0.2865
Kurtosis 2.8
Table 5
Statistics for Fort Scratchley 0.5 Hz cycle data, binned under R
a b Mean STD COV Skewness Kurtosis
4.20 0.72 0.66 0.18 0.07 0.13 2.77
for this data set. Table 4 shows the statistical parameters for this wind velocity data set.
These data were also rainflow counted to isolate fatigue-causing wind cycles and these
wind cycles were translated into the relevant blade stress response cycles. Table 5 shows the
Weibull factors for the analysed data set binned under stress ratio R. It has been seen that a
total of 15,223 cycles were isolated from one 0.5 Hz-Fort Scratchley data file for a period of
3 days (about 129,000 data points) whereas only 61 cycles were counted for the same time
period from the 10 min-BOM data file. Furthermore, it was found that within each 10 min
period of wind data acquired at 0.5 Hz contained on average 30 alternating wind cycles
which contribute to blade fatigue. A total of 132,529 cycles were isolated in 1 month of
rainflow counting the 0.5 Hz wind data. Consequently the number of cycles estimated from
the BOM data has largely under estimated the actual cycles experienced by the blade.
3.2.1. Analysis of rainflow counted cycles

Lang and Winterestein [8] reported that there was no direct relationship between the
number of wind cycles and either turbulence level or wind speed. A similar conclusion was
drawn from analysis of our detailed data; see Fig. 10 for details. Close inspection of Fig. 11
shows a linear relationship between mean and maximum wind velocity for the Fort
Scratchley wind data. Also Figs. 12 and 13 also show a weak linear relationship between
cycles and mean wind speed and cycles and maximum wind speed, respectively. A linear
regression fit of these data had a 0.95 correlation coefficient and a power curve fit had a
0.96 correlation coefficient. However, the linear fit does not pass through the origin. A
power-law-type relationship between the wind velocity and the number of cycles was
therefore used to estimate number of cycles, and is of the form
Cycles ¼ C V m1 m2
mean V maximum , (4)
where C, m1 and m2 are constants.
A similar assumption was made by Lang and Winterestein [8] to obtain a relationship
for the higher statistical moments of a data sample. By using ‘‘MINITAB’’ statistical
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60
50
40
Turbulance %
30
20
10
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Mean Wind Velocity (m/s)
Fig. 10. Turbulence intensity % corresponding to the mean wind velocity of Fort Scratchley wind data acquired
at 0.5 Hz.
20
Maximum Wind Velocity (m/s)
15
10
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Fig. 11. Mean and maximum wind velocity distribution for Fort Scratchley 0.5 Hz wind data.
analysis software package, the values for the constants in Eq. (4) were calculated and
are documented in Table 6. Fig. 14 shows the calculated cycles using Eq. (4) and the
actual cycles isolated from the Fort Scratchley test turbine site. This figure shows
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80
70
60
50
Cycles
40
30
20
10
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Fig. 12. Variation of counted cycles (10 min interval) with mean velocity (Fort Scratchley).
80
70
60
50
Cycles
40
30
20
10
0
0 5 10 15 20
Maximum Wind Velocity (m/s)
Fig. 13. Variation of counted cycles (10 min interval) with maximum velocity (Fort Scratchley).
that the predictions from Eq. (4) are in good agreement with the experimental values.
This derived relationship was therefore used to calculate all possible wind cycles from
the BOM data.
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Table 6
Parameters for Eq. (4)
Parameter Value
C 4.3742
m1 0.780
m2 1.730
14000 Fort Scratchley Data
Calculated Cycles
12000
10000
Cycles
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
2 4 6 8 10
Fig. 14. Calculated cumulative cycles under each mean wind velocity bin (Fort Scratchley).
3.2.2. Regeneration of yearly wind cycle spectrum for BOM data

The following joint probability relationship was used to estimate all possible cycles at a
given data station where 10 min averaged data are available, using the maximum and mean
wind velocities and the Weibull PDF of stress ratios R and wind velocity profile [1]. This
relationship is
Z Z
m1 m2 ðV =bÞa a1
Cycles ¼ C V mean V maximum ð1 e Þ dV ð1 eðR=b1 Þ Þ dR, (5)
V range R range
where CV m1 V m2 is equal to the number of cycles for the particular maximum and
mean R
maximum a
minimum wind velocity, V range 1 eðV =bÞ dV is the distribution of velocity among the
R a
cycles and R range 1 eðR=b1 Þ 1 dR is the distribution of stress ratio among the cycles.
This relationship estimates all possible cycles under each stress level and for each stress
ratio bin. The inputs are Weibull parameters of wind velocity data at the particular station
and measured maximum and minimum yearly wind velocities for the 10 min intervals.
As previously stated the BOM data were acquired and averaged over a 10 min period
and then assigned to a 30 min time period. As such, there is effectively 20 min of data
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Table 7
Final normalized fatigue loading spectrum estimated for Australian wind condition
Wind Normalized R ¼ 0 R ¼ 0:1 R ¼ 0:2 R ¼ 0:3 R ¼ 0:4 R ¼ 0:5 R ¼ 0:6 R ¼ 0:7 R ¼ 0:8 R ¼ 0:9
velocity stress
(m/s)
1 0.01 0 79 372 1031 2080 3270 4014 3734 2500 1124

2 0.02 0 292 1374 4354 7670 12,055 14,797 13,766 9216 4145
3 0.04 0 523 2690 6818 13,761 22,251 26,546 24,698 16,535 7436
4 0.06 0 823 3435 9713 19,169 30,125 37,675 34,402 23,032 10,358
5 0.09 0 955 4260 11,424 23,276 36,237 44,480 41,906 27,705 12,460
6 0.12 0 1007 4539 12,547 24,937 39,581 48,103 44,754 30,448 13,475
7 0.16 68 1014 4428 12,325 24,842 38,834 47,909 44,348 30,218 13,353
8 0.19 52 980 4134 11,315 22,664 35,734 43,932 40,676 27,730 12,247
9 0.23 58 842 3524 9652 19,415 30,510 37,329 34,934 23,623 10,457
10 0.27 34 681 2848 7681 15,434 24,311 29,846 27,883 18,544 8628
11 0.32 26 538 2096 5730 11,563 18,154 22,316 20,910 14,103 6225
12 0.38 16 376 1490 4022 8084 12,709 15,613 14,533 9905 4354
13 0.44 42 237 959 2632 5347 8346 10,246 9558 6350 3012
14 0.50 40 157 610 1634 3273 5157 6327 5895 3906 1852
15 0.57 20 81 354 939 1887 2959 3648 3408 2293 1073
16 0.65 18 52 193 510 1022 1612 1971 1847 1247 586
17 0.73 26 41 104 271 528 830 1030 953 660 310
18 0.84 18 17 55 125 256 394 493 453 309 172
19 0.91 20 6 27 61 114 175 226 199 154 84
20 1.00 26 11 14 30 53 75 103 99 70 56
missing (two data sets) from each 30 min period. To account for these missing data, the
mean and maximum velocities from the two missing data sets were estimated by assuming
both parameters varied in a linear way between the two acquired data sets. The fatigue
cycles were then estimated using Eq. (5). The final spectrum for the Australian wind
conditions is shown in Table 7.
4. Discussion of results
This paper presents a method of combining short-term detailed operational wind turbine
data with long-term averaged wind data to estimate the number and type of wind cycles
that a small wind turbine blade would experience during operation. These wind cycles were
converted into the appropriate blade stress cycles using the results of detailed finite element
modelling of the blade. The resulting blade fatigue loading procedure was based on the
worst Australian wind cycles for binned wind speed and R ratio, and consequently is
conservative in nature.
A critical assumption in developing this procedure was that the blade responded
instantaneously to all changes in wind speed. The aeroelastic data acquired from this blade
indicated that the blade’s flapwise response followed the average wind speed but not the
instantaneous variations in the wind speed, possibly due to blade inertia and structural
damping. Large blades appear to exhibit a similar response, although without the data it is
difficult to determine how their responses compare with a smaller blade. It is likely that
smaller blades will be relatively stiffer than their larger counterparts especially if the blade
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is solid. This means that small blades will experience fewer flapwise fatigue cycles than
large blades but may experience an increased number of lead-lag cycles due to the higher
blade rotational speeds. The fatigue effect of lead-lag cycles, principally due to gravity, was
found to be negligible for the 2.5 m blade.
It has been shown that 10 min averaged BOM data underestimates the number of
fatigue-causing cycles by missing a significant number of cycles within the long sampling
periods. The relationship developed here between the wind cycles and the mean and
maximum wind speed, based on the detailed data, was used to estimate these missing
cycles. A joint probability distribution of wind speed at a particular BOM station and
stress ratio were used to distribute the estimated cycles into the relevant stress levels and
stress ratio bins. This method allowed the inherent wind pattern of the BOM station to be
preserved whilst maintaining the properties of the deduced relationship in Eq. (5).
5. Conclusions
A formulation has been developed to create a fatigue loading procedure for the blade of
a small wind turbine using a combination of detailed short-term operational wind turbine
data acquired from an experimental wind turbine and averaged long-term wind data from
the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Aeroelastic data acquired simultaneously
with the wind speed shows that the blade does not respond instantaneously to all changes
in the wind speed. It was assumed for the blade loading procedure that the blade did
respond instantaneously to the wind speed thereby giving the worst case loading scenario.
Both the detailed and averaged data were found to be modelled well by a Weibull
distribution. A relationship between wind cycles and both the average and maximum
velocity was determined using the detailed wind data and subsequently used to estimate the
missing fatigue cycles from the Bureau’s data. A joint probability relationship has been
proposed which distributes the fatigue cycles to all nominated stress levels and associated
R ratio bins. Using this relationship, a year long loading spectrum consisting of 1,803,705
cycles corresponding to wind velocities between 1 and 20 m/s was defined for the 2.5 m long
blade.
References
[1] J.A. Epaarachchi, The development and testing of a new fatigue life procedure for small composite wind
turbine blades incorporating new empirical fatigue life prediction and damage accumulation models for glass
fibre reinforced plastics, Ph.D. Thesis presented to University of Newcastle, Australia, November 2002.
[2] IEC 1400-2, International Standard, International Electro Technical Commission, 1998.
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York, 1987.
[4] L.M. Fitzwater, S.R. Winterstein, Predicting Design Wind Turbine Loads From Limited Data: Comparing
Random Process and Random Peak Models, AIAA Publication 2001–0046, 2001.
[5] M.E. Bechly, P.D. Clausen, Structural design of a composite wind turbine blade using finite element analysis,
Comput. Struct. 63 (3) (1997) 639–646.
[6] A.A. ten Have, WISPER and WISPERX: a summary paper describing their backgrounds, derivation and
statistics, ASME—SED—Wind Energy SED 14 (1993) 169–178.
[7] J. S. Herbert, Fatigue case study and loading spectra for wind turbines, IEA Fatigue Expert Meeting, 1994.
[8] C.H. Lange, S.R. Winterstein, Fatigue design of wind turbine blades: load and resistance factors from limited
data, ASME, 1996.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
[9] M. Noda, R.G.J. Flay, A simulation model for wind turbine blade fatigue loads, J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn.
(83) (1999) 527–540.
[10] F. Castino, R. Festa, C.F. Ratto, Stochastic modelling of wind velocities time series, J. Wind Eng. Ind.
Aerodyn. 74–76 (1998) 141–151.
[11] R. Luc, H. Ray (Eds.), European Wind Turbine Standards/Non-nuclear Energy-JOULE II, Report EUR
16898 EN, 1996.
[12] D.M. Deaves, On the fitting of low mean windspeed data to the Weibull distribution Lines. L.G,, J. Wind
Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 66 (1997) 169–178.
[13] M.E. Bechly, P.D. Clausen, J. Lindeyer, D.H. Wood, The Fort Scratchley wind turbine, in: Proceedings of
the 35th ANZSES Conference, 1–3 December, Canberra, ACT, 1997.
[14] V. Metcalfe Andrew, Statistics in Engineering, First ed, Chapman & Hall, London, 1994.

The Development of A Fatigue Loading Spectrum For Small Wind Turbine Blades

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The Development of A Fatigue Loading Spectrum For Small Wind Turbine Blades

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ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Wind Engineering

The development of a fatigue loading spectrum for

Keywords: Wind data; Weibull analysis; Rainﬂow counting

0167-6105/$ - see front matter r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

a, b Weibull shape and scale parameters

2. Dynamic response of a 2.5 m wind turbine blade

3. Wind data analysis

3.1. BOM wind data analysis

3.1.1. Analysis of wind velocity spectrum

New South Wales Sydney Airport

3.1.2. Rainflow counting of wind velocity spectrum

y = 2.1244 + 0.54185x R = 0.99786

a = 1.85 and b = 8.37

Station Wind velocity (m/s) s COV Skewness Kurtosis Weibull parameters

Canberra_APa 21.09 6.2 3.384 0.54572 0.932612 3.58096 2.03 7.15

Fig. 4. Transformation of a wind cycle to a corresponding stress cycle on the blade.

R a b Mean STD COV Skewness

0 14.6931 146.92 141.78 11.82 0.01 0.78

Possible cycles in the stress range

Relative Frequency Density

3.2. Analysis of 0.5 Hz wind data

a b Mean STD COV Skewness Kurtosis

4.20 0.72 0.66 0.18 0.07 0.13 2.77

3.2.1. Analysis of rainflow counted cycles

14000 Fort Scratchley Data

3.2.2. Regeneration of yearly wind cycle spectrum for BOM data

1 0.01 0 79 372 1031 2080 3270 4014 3734 2500 1124

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