Itera 1

PROJECT WORK PRESENTATION PHASE 1
Failure Analysis of Wind Turbine Blades under

fluid-structure interaction
STUDENT NAMES
GUHAN M - 20M219
SAHARSH.S - 20M241
ASHWIN RAM M - 21M431
Guided by :
Dr.Magesh Thiruvengadam
Assistant Professor,
Department of Mechanical Engineering.
BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

6TH NOVEMBER 2023 19M720 BE: G2-SEM 7 1
OBJECTIVE
● To investigate the 3-D turbulent fluid flow over the wind turbine blades
and study the impact of flow field on the blade structural deformation
using one/two way interaction.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
Investigating the effects of wind loads and temperature variations, on the failure of
wind turbine blades and developing predictive models for failure analysis.
The possible root causes are divided into four different categories:
● External
● Structural
● Electrical
● Wear and Tear

LITERATURE REVIEW
Structural Analysis of Wind Turbine Blade
Santosh Rao et al.,2018 [1]
● In this work a NACA 4412 profile was created using DESIGN FOIL software
to obtain the coordinates of a wind turbine blade in PRO/E.
● To find a suitable composite for wind turbine blade, Modal and Static
analysis were performed on the modified design using Carbon fiber,
E-Glass, S-Glass and Kevlar fiber composites in ANSYS APDL 12.0
software.

A Critical Review of Damage and Failure of Composite Wind Turbine
Blade Structures
Xiao Chen et al.,2020 [2]

● Investigating the structural failure mechanisms under combined
complex (multiaxial) loading.
● Large scale fatigue tests observed in the field provide ample evidence
for the need of deploying more sophisticated fatigue prediction tools.

Root Causes and Mechanisms of Failure of Wind Turbine Blades
Leon Mishnaevsky.Jr et al., 2022[3]
● Methods of investigation of different damage mechanisms are reviewed,

including full scale testing, post-mortem analysis, incident reports,
computational simulations and sub-component testing.

Review on Aerodynamic Performance Evaluation of Straight Blade Vertical

Axis Wind Turbine
Chirag Soni et al.,[4]
● The details of different configurations and performance evaluation

techniques along with the major findings of researchers on horizontal
axis wind turbines are reviewed in this paper.
● The main purpose of the study described here is to investigate effect
of different design parameter on performance evaluation of VAWT
and HAWT.

A Comprehensive Analysis of Wind Turbine Blade Damage
Dimitris Al al et.,2021 [5]
● Investigated the potential causes that can lead to wind turbine blade
failures, assessed their significance to a turbine’s performance and
secure operation and summarized the techniques proposed to prevent
these failures and eliminate their consequences.
● Damage to wind turbine blades can be induced by lightning, fatigue
loads, accumulation of icing on the blade surfaces and the exposure of
blades to airborne particulates, causing so-called leading edge erosion.

LITERATURE SUMMARY
● Investigation of root causes and mechanisms of failure of wind turbine

blades was carried out.
● Wind turbine Blade failure analysis is an essential aspect of wind
energy technology, aimed at understanding and mitigating the causes
of turbine blade failures to improve reliability, safety, and
performance.
● The design of the wind turbine blades must be structurally optimized
with optimal blade thickness distribution and maximum power output.

LITERATURE GAP
● These literature reviews have identified all the various factors which
affects the failure of a wind turbine
● Very Limited research have been carried out on wind turbine blades
under fluid structure interaction.
● There is a need for more research on Fluid-structure interaction
modeling techniques specific to wind turbine Blades .
● The computational results validated with prototype are also not
available in the literature reviews.
● This Study after completion
BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE
will CLASS
form the
PAGE
foundation Department
for theof Mechanical
fatigueEngineering
METHODOLOGY

METHODOLOGY



sources:https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Wind_turbine

SOURCES:https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/753/4/042010/pdf

Nomenclature of a blade:
SOURCES:https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/753/4/042010/pdf

Materials used for the blade manufacturing
● Glass fiber
● Resin
● Aramid and basalt fibers
● Carbon fiber
● Natural fibers
● Hybrid Composites(E-glass/Carbon,E-glass/aramid)


Available wind
power= 0.114 KW

Turbine efficiency =30%

Wake losses =5%
Mechanical losses =2%

Electrical losses
(transmission) =5%
Time out of order =5%
Electrical losses =1.5%
Real efficiency=
25.817%

Output Power = 0.029 KW

Revenue = Rs 0.21/ hr

Torque = 1.2593 Nm

Area = 3.14 m2
Available wind
power= 0.286 KW

Real efficiency= 25.817%



Torque = 2.3258 Nm

Area = 3.14 m2
Available wind
power= 0.286 KW

Real efficiency= 25.817%



Torque = 2.3258 Nm

NACA 2110(3.9 M/S)

5.3 M/S

7 M/S

NACA 2110

NACA 3325( 3.9 M/S)



NACA 2110

NACA 3325

NACA 4430


Numerical Results


Micro Green Energies Pvt. Ltd
Industrial Visit
Kethanur
Tirupur.






FLUID STRUCTURE ANALYSIS OF AIR-PLANE

WING THROUGH COUPLED CFD/FEA

WHY DO WE NEED TO VALIDATE OUR DESIGN ?
• For any design, validation is an essential process with out which

the possibility of failure would be high
• With uncertainty is always a part of physical functioning of any

component, validating its performance prior mass production is
mandate to avoid failures

HOW TO VALIDATE OUR MODEL?

• To understand, to infer and to optimize any component in perspective of
Structural dynamics and Fluid dynamics associated with steady and transient
behavior ,we have the following three approaches.
• 1.Numerical Investigation (NI)
• 2. Experimental Investigation (EI)

CFD
• 3.Numerical Investigation (NI)
FEA

THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION
•
Limitations:
❖ Methods are
available for
Simple physics
❖ Simple
Geometrical
configurations
❖ Many
approximations
and assumptions
have to be made

DIFFICULTIES ASSOCIATED WITH THEORETICAL

METHOD
• Accurate
• Results are continuous
• Tough to generate and solve
• Meant for simple physics and simple geometries
• Many assumptions and approximations

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
• WIND TUNNEL TESTING OF A CAR TESTING OF A PUMP
❖ A full scale or a scale down or a scale up prototype is developed and tested for various working
conditions
❖ Various measuring instruments and methods are utilized to measure different flow and thermal variables
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Data logger arrangement to store temperature data

PIV

DIFFICULTIES ASSOCIATED WITH EXPERIMENTAL

METHOD
• Costlier
• Time consuming
• Hazardous
• Single purposed
• Loss of insight (Absence of space marching)
• Loss of foresight (Absence of time marching)
• Error during measurement and instrument errors

SCOPE OF THE ACTIVITY

• Scope of this entire activity to understand the basics of CFD and FEA and
their competence in simulating Fluid structure interaction problems
• Once enough confidence is established, the same best parties achieved

would be utilized to simulate a wind turbine with the three blade system
• The underlying physics of fluttering behavior of wind turbine blade is

thoroughly studied and in case of any failure scenario for the given design
and fixing conditions, optimization activities are to be attempted to make
the entire design and fixing conditions to the most favorable.

EVALUATION OF FLOW CHARACTERISTICS

THROUGH CFD

GEOMETRY AEROFOIL WING
INLET
WIND TUNNEL
OUTLET
❖ To demonstrate how FSI can be used in predicting Fluttering an

Airplane wing of length of 10 m is considered for this study
❖ The above pictures shows the blade design and arrangement
of wind tunnel
❖ The CAD model is created in CATIA and the entire
pre-processing activity is done in Ansys Space Claim

MESH DETAILS
❖ The surface of the computational domain is

discretized with Tri elements and the Volume is
discretized with Tetrahedron elements
❖ Surface mesh Count:1.53 Million
❖ Volume mesh Count :2.94 Million

FLUID AND BOUNDARY CONDITION
• Air is assumed to be the working fluid
• Velocity inlet boundary conditions is imposed at the inlet of the computational

domain with an inlet velocity of 66 m/s
• Flow is assumed to be three dimensional and turbulent
• Outlet of the computational domain is imposed with pressure outlet with 0 static
pressure (Ambient condition)
• All other boundaries are assumed with symmetric BC

STATIC PRESSURE CONTOUR
❖ From the CFD Simulation static pressure contour is arrived and from this contour the following
observations are made:
● At the bottom surface of the wing high static pressure and the top surface low suction pressure is
experienced
● The frontal area of wing is exposed to a significant stagnation pressure

STATIC PRESSURE
CONTOUR
❖ The top surface experiences low suction pressure

STATIC PRESSURE CONTOUR
❖ The bottom surface experiences high positive pressure

TOTAL PRESSURE CONTOUR
❖ The top surface experiences low suction pressure

TOTAL PRESSURE CONTOUR
❖ The bottom surface experiences high positive pressure

FINITE ELEMENT INVESTIGATION OF

WING
STATIC STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS

FINITE ELEMENT DETAILS

STRESS CONTOUR

• From the CFD results, pressure values are obtained over the entire
geometry of the wing space instantaneously. These values are
mapped to finite element domain and the stress and deformation plots
and magnitudes are arrived

STRESS PLOT
❖ Fixed constraint
❖ Free condition

STRESS PLOT

STRESS PLOT

STRESS PLOT

DEFORMATION CONTOUR

DEFORMATION PLOT
❖ The maximum deformation of 17 mm is observed at the tail end

for the given wind and boundary condition

CONCLUSION
● Thus a comprehensive fluid structure interaction methodology is

arrived by coupling computational fluid dynamics(CFD) and Finite
element analysis(FEA).
● This work is limited to arrival of the best practices of the executing
FSI simulation for the above mentioned.
● With the level of experience gained from these analysis , the same
best practices of CFD\FEA would be applied for 3-Bladed wind
turbine.

FORTHCOMING TASKS
● Creation of 3-Blade HAWT.

● Arrival of pressure data over the entire span of the blades through
CFD.
● Conducting FSI simulation for HAWT by coupling CFD And FEA.
● Understanding the underlying physics of fluttering
● Identifying the area of improvement for the reduction of fluttering.
● Optimisation of the model where amount of fluttering falls well within
the range of standards.


GEOMETRICAL DETAILS
•The 3D HAWT model with 3 blade configuration is
considered for the investigation
•The length of an individual blade is 50 m
•The tower height is around 150 m
•The swept area of the wind turbine is 7854 m2
•The blade cross section profile is designed by
Suzlon






TWO-WAY COUPLING
METHOD
● We propose a new two-way coupling FSI 3D model scheme for an

asymmetric serpentine to simulate the influence of drag and inertial
forces of the fluid over a particle with unrestricted degrees of
freedom.
● The simulation results from the free-rotating particle also allowed to
find the angular velocity components of the particle, providing a set of
variables that are hardly attainable under postulated assumptions
alone.
● The flow rate and geometry of the simulated domain were adjusted to
match the experimental values in the fluidic device.

DYNAMIC MESHING
● In computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, the dynamic mesh
approach simulates the movement of objects or boundaries inside a fluid
domain.
● During a CFD simulation, the fluid domain is partitioned into a mesh of
discrete cells or elements.
● To model the movement of objects within the fluid or to adjust to changes
in the fluid domain, the position and shape of the mesh can be altered
dynamically while the simulation is running.
● Dynamic mesh is frequently utilized in simulations of rotating equipment,
oscillating structures, or fluid-structure interactions.

FABRICATION OF MODEL AND TESTING

● Hand moulding technology is mostly
preferred for small scale wind turbine blade
manufacturing process, but its feasibility and
accessibility is still undivulged.
● The model is tested finally under a wind
Tunnel testing facility and their results are
validated and verified using our simulated
results.





















































REFERENCES
[1] Dr. Shubhrata Nagpal,”Structural Analysis of Wind Turbine Blade”,Volume 8, Issue III, MARCH/2018.
[2] Xiao Chen and Martin A. Eder, ”A Critical Review of Damage and Failure of Composite Wind Turbine Blade Structures “,Volume
12,Issue 09 (2020).
[3] https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2020-66/wes-2020-66.pdf
[4] https://docs.qblade.org/
[5] Colin.G. Anderson,2020. “”Wind turbines :Theory and Practice “.
[6]James.f.Manwell,september,2010.”Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and Application, 2nd Edition”.


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PROJECT WORK PRESENTATION PHASE 1

Failure Analysis of Wind Turbine Blades under

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Structural Analysis of Wind Turbine Blade

Santosh Rao et al.,2018 [1]

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Xiao Chen et al.,2020 [2]

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Root Causes and Mechanisms of Failure of Wind Turbine Blades

Leon Mishnaevsky.Jr et al., 2022[3]

● Methods of investigation of different damage mechanisms are reviewed,

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Review on Aerodynamic Performance Evaluation of Straight Blade Vertical

Chirag Soni et al.,[4]

● The details of different configurations and performance evaluation

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

● Investigation of root causes and mechanisms of failure of wind turbine

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Materials used for the blade manufacturing

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Turbine efficiency =30%

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Output Power = 0.029 KW

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Real efficiency= 25.817%

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Output Power = 0.074 KW

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Real efficiency= 25.817%

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

Output Power = 0.074 KW

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

NACA 2110(3.9 M/S)

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

NACA 3325( 3.9 M/S)

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering

BATCH : 11 COURSE CODE CLASS PAGE Department of Mechanical Engineering