J. Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (Sci.

), 2020, 25(2): 261-265

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12204-020-2171-6

Fatigue Life Analysis of Longitudinal Welding Seam for

Wind Turbine Tower

GUO Wenqiang 1 ( ), SUN Pengwen 1∗ ( ê ), NIU Lei 2 (  ), WANG Zongtao 3 ( 
)

(1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010051, China;
2. School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China;
3. Research Institute, Beiqi Foton Motor Co., Ltd., Beijing 102206, China)

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract: Tower is an important fundamental component of large-scale wind turbines. The fatigue performance of
the tower welded part directly affects the running safety and reliability of wind turbines. A fatigue life predicting
method for the longitudinal welding seam of the tower is proposed in this paper. Under the precondition of
satisfying the limit strength, the time series stress of each working condition is obtained by DIN18800-4 section
stress calculation. Combined with the rain-flow counting method and the Miner linear cumulative damage theory,
the fatigue life of the tower longitudinal weld is predicted. The results show that the tower structure meets the
design requirement, and the feasibility and effectiveness of the method are verified.
Key words: longitudinal welding, fatigue life prediction, limit strength analysis, wind turbine tower
CLC number: TK 83 Document code: A

0 Introduction simulate the fluctuating wind, Peng et al.[3] analyzed

The load of wind turbine is variable and random,
and its service life mainly depends on the fatigue life
of key components[1] . As the main supporting com-
ponent of wind turbine set, the safety and reliability
of tower structure is one of the key factors to ensure
its normal operation. The manufacturing process of
tower is material-blanking by computer numerical con-
trol (CNC) cutting machine, plate-rolling by the roller
machine, and welding of the internal and external lon-
gitudinal welding seam. The stress concentration is
caused by the spatial layout of welding structure and
welding seam, and the fatigue damage is easy to occur
under the long-term random dynamic load, so the weld
becomes the weak part of the fatigue strength of the
whole structure.
The main researches on the structure and fatigue
characteristics of wind turbine tower by scholars are
as follows: Bazeos et al.[2] verified the improved finite
element model by taking 450 kW horizontal axis wind
turbine as an example, and improved the static char-
acteristic and the accuracy of buckling strength anal-
ysis of the tower. Using auto-regressive method to
Received date: 2018-10-10
Foundation item: the Special Research Fund for the Natu-
ral Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region (No. 2019MS05070)
∗E-mail: pwsun@imut.edu.cn
the fluid-solid coupling characteristics of the wind tur-
bine based on the ABAQUS collaborative simulation
platform. Long and Mao[4] put forward two different
calculation methods of time-series fatigue damage and
equivalent fatigue damage, and deduced the calculation
formulas of equivalent fatigue load, equivalent fatigue
stress and equivalent fatigue damage. For a certain
section, the analysis and calculation of equivalent fa-
tigue damage and time-series fatigue damage were car-
ried out, the results were compared, and the equivalence
conditions and applicable conditions were given. How-
ever, the fatigue life of the longitudinal weld was not an-
alyzed according to the actual working environment of
the wind turbine tower. Considering three-dimensional
turbulent wind field, Beddoes-Leishman dynamic stall
model, inertia load and gravity load, Chen et al.[5] cal-
culated the ultimate load of the tower and analyzed the
static strength of the tower under two extreme condi-
tions according to the blade element momentum prin-
ciple, but did not investigate the fatigue characteristics
of the tower. Long et al.[6] established the finite ele-
ment model of the door opening for a direct drive wind
turbine based on the hot-spot stress method, and calcu-
lated the ultimate strength and fatigue strength of the
weld toe near the door using nCode Design-Life soft-
ware.
Therefore, under the premise that the longitudinal
weld of the tower satisfies the ultimate strength, the
262 J. Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (Sci.), 2020, 25(2): 261-265

whole life cycle analysis method based on S-N curve of tower section, while Mz , Fx and Fy cause the shear
is used to calculate the rain flow counting and Miner stresser of tower section.
linear cumulative damage in this paper on the basis of According to DIN18800-4 engineering algorithm[4] ,
time series stress spectrum. The fatigue life and fatigue the calculating formula of the maximum principal stress
damage value of each working condition are obtained, of tower section is
and the fatigue life is predicted. 
Mx2 + My2 |Fz |
1 Wind Turbine Tower Structure and σmax = 2
+ , (1)
πr d cos θ 2πrd cos θ
its Coordinates
where σmax is the maximum principal stress of tower
A 2.0 MW wind turbine tower is taken as the re- section, θ is the cone angle of tower, d is wall thickness
search object, the whole tower is welded and formed by of tower, and r is the middle diameter of tower.
26 sections of steel plate with different thickness, and The calculating formula of the maximum shear stress
the sections are connected by L-flange through bolts. of tower section is
The tower height is 73.110 m, the bottom diameter is 
4.200 m, the diameter difference between top and bot- |Mz | Fx2 + Fy2
τmax = + , (2)
tom is 1.800 m, and wall thickness is 32 mm. According 2πr2 d πrd
to the GL2010 specification, the coordinates of wind
where τmax is the maximum shear stress of tower sec-
turbine tower are shown in Fig. 1. Here, Fx , Fy and
tion.
Fz are the forces on tower in the x, y and z directions,
According to the fourth strength theory of material
respectively; Mx , My and Mz are the moment on tower
mechanics, the maximum equivalent stress composed
in the x, y and z directions, respectively.
by principal stress and shear stress is

2
σvon mises = σmax 2 ,
+ 3τmax (3)
Fz
where σvon mises is the maximum equivalent stress.
2.2 Limit Strength Analysis of Longitudinal
Welding Seam
Fy Mz GH-Bladed software outputs 34 tower section limit
My Mx Fx
z loads at different heights. In order to ensure that the
longitudinal welds of tower structure meet the static
y x
strength requirements, it is necessary to check the ulti-
O mate strength of the section ultimate load at different
tower heights.
Fig. 1 Coordinates of wind turbine tower The maximum equivalent stress is the main cause of
the tower structure damage, so the static strength anal-
ysis is used to check the maximum equivalent stress of
2 Static Strength Analysis of Longitu- each limit working condition, and whether the struc-
dinal Welding Seam ture satisfies the ultimate strength requirements is de-
termined by comparing the safety factor.
2.1 Section Stress Calculation Method of The calculating formula of safety factor is expressed
DIN18800-4 by
The longitudinal weld of tower structure belongs to σmax
butt weld, and the stress concentration is less than that δ= , (4)
σa
of fillet weld, so it can be solved by nominal stress
method. In addition, the tower structure meets the ba- where δ is the safety factor, and σa is the allowable
sic hypothesis of material mechanics, and section stress stress.
value can be obtained by the stress calculating for- The calculating formula of the allowable stress can
mula of material mechanics, but the taper of the tower be expressed by
is ignored in this method. Therefore, the calculation σy
precision for the section stress of the tower can be in- σa = , (5)
γM
creased by using the DIN18800-4 section stress calcula-
tion method that considers the taper of the tower. where σy is the yield limit of material, and γM is the
The output load of the tower section by GH-Bladed local safety factor of material.
software is the force and moment of three directions, According to the GL2010 specification, when peri-
among which Mx , My andFz cause the normal stresses odic monitoring and maintenance are considered and
J. Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (Sci.), 2020, 25(2): 261-265 263

the implementation degree is good, the failure of com- According to the GL2010 specification, the dam-
ponents leads to the damage of wind turbine set, so age of longitudinal welding seam of tower structure
γM = 1.15. can be considered as a linear cumulative relationship
Taking the ultimate load at the tower bottom sec- with stress cycle under the repeated action of a given
tion apart 0.6 m from the ground as an example, we stress level. When the fatigue cumulative damage value
calculate 14 limit working conditions by GH-Bladed reaches 0.5, fatigue failure will occur[7] :
software, including the limit loads and the limit bend-  ni
ing moment in the x, y and z directions, as well as D=  0.5, (6)
N (Si )
the working conditions corresponding to the maximum
equivalent forces and moment. According to section where D is the fatigue cumulative damage, ni is the
stress calculation method and safety factor calculation number of calculating fatigue cycles of the ith level load
formula of DIN18800-4, the equivalent stress and the in load spectrum, and N (Si ) is the number of cycles
safety factor of each limit working condition of tower corresponding to the ith level stress or strain.
bottom section are obtained, which are shown in Table 3.1 S-N Curve of Welding Seam Material
1, where σr is the equivalent stress, Fr is the equivalent According to the S-N curve of welding seam material
force, and Mr is the equivalent moment. required by the GL2010 specification, the Erucode 3
standard is selected as the basic form of the S-N curve
Table 1 Equivalent stress and safety factor of each
of the tower welding seam material, as shown in Fig. 2,
limit working condition of tower bottom
section
where S is the stress and N is the number of cycles.
Here, NA , ND and NB are 2 × 106 , 5 × 106 and 1 × 107 ,
Parameter Working condition σr /MPa δ respectively. The S-N curve of standard design usually
Fx Minimum 143.6 1.97 indicates the fatigue strength of the structure under
Fx Maximum 136.4 2.07 2 × 106 cycles, and it is defined as detail category (DC)
Fy Minimum 49.8 5.68 value[7] .
Fy Maximum 46.9 6.02 S
Fz Minimum 12.8 22.09
Fz Maximum 36.8 7.68
DC S-N curve (Eurocode 3)
Fr Maximum 137.4 2.06
ΔσD
Mx Minimum 98.3 2.87
ΔσB
Mx Maximum 80.2 3.52
My Minimum 144.6 1.95
My Maximum 136.6 2.07
Mz Minimum 50.1 5.64
Mz Maximum 59.6 4.74 O NA ND NB N
Mr Maximum 144.7 1.95
Fig. 2 The S-N curve of welding seam material

It can be seen from Table 1 that the most dangerous

working conditions in the 14 limit conditions are the
maximum Mr and the minimum My , and their safety
factors are all 1.95, both greater than 1.0. Therefore,
the design of the tower bottom section satisfies the re-
quirements of static strength.
In the same way, the static strength of the limit load
at other 33 different heights of tower is checked, and
their safety factors are also greater than 1.0, which
shows that the design of the other tower sections meets
the requirements of the limit strength.
3 Fatigue Strength Analysis of Longitu-
dinal Welding of Tower Structure
Generally, the design of wind turbines needs to meet
the requirements of 20-year anti-fatigue design. There-
fore, since the tower section weld meets the ultimate
strength, its fatigue strength needs to be checked.
The International Institute of Welding (IIW) rec-
ommended some S-N curves for the fatigue strength
of welded joints of structural steel, i.e., DC71, DC80,
DC90, DC100 and DC112[8-9] . In the fatigue strength
analysis of the longitudinal welding seam, DC71 is cho-
sen for the safety.
It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the stress amplitude
corresponding to any number of cycles of the S-N curve
can be derived from S-N curve and DC value of welded
structure parts. That is to say, the stress amplitude cor-
responding to other number of cycles can be calculated
by the stress amplitude DC corresponding to 2 × 106
cycles. For example, the calculation formulas of stress
amplitude corresponding to ΔσD and ΔσB are
1
 
2 × 106 m1
ΔσD = DC , (7)
5 × 106
264 J. Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (Sci.), 2020, 25(2): 261-265

1 1 Load spectrum of
 6
  6
 Start
2 × 10 m1 5 × 10 m2 time series fatigue
ΔσB = DC , (8)
5 × 106 1 × 107
Section stress calculation
method of DIN18800-4
Stress spectrum of
where m1 and m2 are the exponential slope values,
time series fatigue
which are 3 and 5, respectively. Rain-flow counting method,
Miner’s linear fatigue
The DC value of fatigue design grade is different; the cumulative damage theory
values of ΔσD and ΔσB are also different. According to
the recommended fatigue design grade of IIW[10] , the Cumulative damage
End
values of ΔσD and ΔσB are shown in Table 2. value of fatigue
Fig. 3 Flow chart of fatigue life prediction for longitudinal
Table 2 Values of ΔσD and ΔσB welding seam
DC of design grade ΔσD /MPa ΔσB /MPa
635.4
71 52.31 45.54
80 58.94 51.31
90 66.31 57.73

σt/MPa
100 73.68 64.14
112 82.52 71.84

3.2 Fatigue Life Analysis of Longitudinal
Welding Seam
The flow chart of fatigue life prediction for longitudi-
nal welding seam of tower structure is shown in Fig. 3.
Time-series fatigue load spectrum of each fatigue work-
ing condition at the center of flange section is output
by GH-Bladed software, and the time-series fatigue load
spectra of 70 groups of fatigue conditions are output ac-
cording to the GL2010 specification. The time-series fa-
tigue stress spectrum of each fatigue working condition
is obtained by DIN18800-4 section stress calculation[11] .
The fatigue cumulative damage value is calculated by
the Miner’s linear fatigue cumulative damage theory
and the rain flow counting method, and the fatigue life
can be predicted.
Limited to space, only the time-series stress (σt ) cal-
culation results of a certain working condition for the
longitudinal welding seam of the tower are given, as
shown in Fig. 4, where t is the time.
0 120 240 360 480 600
t/s
Fig. 4 Time-series stress calculation result of a certain
working condition
The calculated time-series fatigue stress spectrum
is imported into nCode Design-Life software, and the
fatigue analysis flow chart is established, as shown in
Fig. 5. Material properties and S-N curves are set, and
calculation is submitted. The fatigue life and fatigue
cumulative damage value of each working condition
for the tower longitudinal welding seam are shown in
Table 3.
The total damage value of 20-year fatigue accumu-
lation of tower longitudinal welding seam is 0116 that
is far less than 0.5, which is the maximum cumulative
fatigue damage value specified in the GL2010 specifica-
tion for welded structures, so it meets the 20-year life
design requirements of wind turbine.

Fig. 5 Calculation setting of fatigue life of the longitudinal welding seam

J. Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (Sci.), 2020, 25(2): 261-265 265

Table 3 Fatigue calculation results of the longitudinal welding seam

Working condition Fatigue life Fatigue damage Cumulative frequency Fatigue cumulative damage

01 6.90 × 1013 1.45 ×10−14 4.40 ×104 6.37 × 10−10

02 2.81 × 1014 3.56 × 10−15 4.40 × 104 1.56 × 10−10
03 3.73 × 1014 2.68 × 10−15 3.87 × 104 1.04 × 10−10
. . . . .
.. .. .. .. ..
25 1.56 × 107 6.39 × 10−8 1.34 × 104 8.54 × 10−4
26 2.24 × 107 4.46 × 10−8 1.34 × 104 5.96 × 10−4
27 9.35 × 106 1.07 × 10−7 9.56 × 103 1.02 × 10−3
. . . . .
.. .. .. .. ..
48 5.00 × 107 2.00 × 10−8 8.00 × 103 1.60 × 10−4
49 2.16 × 106 4.62 × 10−7 2.00 × 102 9.24 × 10−5
50 1.85 × 106 5.41 × 10−7 8.00 × 102 4.33 × 10−4
.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . .
68 1.18 × 108 8.51 × 10−9 2.00 × 102 1.70 × 10−6
69 1.56 × 108 6.39 × 10−9 8.70 × 101 5.56 × 10−7
70 5.05 × 108 1.98 × 10−9 8.40 × 101 1.66 × 10−7
Total — — — 0.0116

4 Conclusion totype wind turbine steel towel [J]. Engineering Struc-

Taking the tower structure of a 2.0 MW wind tur-
bine as calculation example, we carry out the static
strength analysis and fatigue life prediction for the lon-
gitudinal welding seam of the tower. According to the
limit load of the tower structure subjected to in the
working process, the maximum equivalent stress value
of the tower longitudinal weld under each limit condi-
tion is obtained. The results show that the safety factor
of the tower longitudinal weld under each limit condi-
tion is greater than 1.0, and the tower meets the static
strength requirements.
According to the requirements of GL2010 specifica-
tion, the S-N curve of weld material is selected. Com-
bined with the time-series fatigue load spectrum of the
wind turbine tower structure in the actual working pro-
cess, the fatigue life is predicted and fatigue cumulative
damage is calculated by the DIN18800-4 section stress
calculation method. The results show that the total fa-
tigue cumulative damage value of the longitudinal weld-
ing seam in 20 years is 0.011 6, that is far less than 0.5;
therefore, it meets the design requirements. The feasi-
bility and effectiveness of this method are verified. The
proposed method can be used as one of the practical
means for the design and analysis of longitudinal weld-
ing strength of wind turbine tower.
References
[1] ZHANG Z, CHEN X. Analysis of the fatigue of wind
turbine [J]. Journal of North China Institute of Wa-
ter Conservancy and Hydroelectric Power, 2008, 29(3):
41-43 (in Chinese).
[2] BAZEOS N, HATZIGEORGIOU G D, HONDROS I
D, et al. Static, seismic and stability analyses of a pro-
tures, 2002, 24(8): 1015-1025.
[3] PENG W C, DENG Z W, GAO Q F, et al. Fluid-solid
interaction analysis and stress monitoring research of
wind turbine tower [J]. Engineering Mechanics, 2015,
32(7): 136-142 (in Chinese).
[4] LONG K, MAO X E. Analysis of weld strength in tur-
bine tower of HAWT [J]. Acta Energiae Solaris Sinica,
2014, 35(10): 1981-1987 (in Chinese).
[5] CHEN Y, TIAN P, LIU X, et al. Research on static
and dynamic characteristics of cone-shaped tower
of HAWTs [J]. Acta Energiae Solaris Sinica, 2010,
31(10): 1359-1365 (in Chinese).
[6] LONG K, XIE Y Q, GONG D F. Research on door
strength of turbine tower of large HAWTs [J]. Acta
Energiae Solaris Sinica, 2014, 35(6): 1065-1069 (in
Chinese).
[7] Germanischer Lloyd in Cooperation with the Wind
Energy Committee. Guideline for the certification of
wind turbines [S]. Hamburg, Germany: Germanischer
Lloyd, 2010.
[8] HOBBACHER A F. The new IIW recommendations
for fatigue assessment of welded joints and components
–A comprehensive code recently updated [J]. Interna-
tional Journal of Fatigue, 2009, 31(1): 50-58.
[9] HOBBACHER A F. Recommendations for fatigue
design of weld joints and components [M]. Cham,
Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2016.
[10] NIEMI E, FRICKE W, MADDOX S J. Structural hot-
spot stress approach to fatigue analysis of welded com-
ponents [M]. 2nd ed. Singapore: Springer Nature Sin-
gapore Pte Ltd, 2018.
[11] VAN WINGERDE A M, PACKER J A, WARDE-
NIER J. Criteria for the fatigue assessment of hollow
structural section connections [J]. Journal of Construc-
tional Steel Research, 1995, 35(1): 71-115.