Advancing wind turbine load mitigation: A novel beam/cable support system approach for enhanced structural integrity in extreme wind conditions

Ensuring the structural integrity of wind turbine blades under extreme wind loading remains a critical challenge in wind engineering. This study introduces a novel passive load mitigation approach through the integration of an internal beam/cable support system within the blade architecture. The proposed system is designed to offload and redistribute stress away from the primary fiber-reinforced composite structure, thereby enhancing load-bearing capacity without significantly increasing structural weight. Numerical analyses were performed using ANSYS ACP (Pre) and ANSYS Mechanical (2023 R2), assessing various fiber layup configurations subjected to simulated extreme wind conditions. Key structural performance metrics including blade deflection, stress distribution, and failure risk (evaluated via inverse reserve factors) were examined. The findings indicate that the support system effectively limits blade deflection within conservative design thresholds across different layup thicknesses. Additionally, notable reductions in stress concentrations were observed, accompanied by substantial improvements in failure resistance. These results underscore the system’s potential to enhance blade reliability under critical loading scenarios. This work presents a structurally efficient and practically implementable strategy for improving the resilience of composite wind turbine blades. The approach holds strong promises for advancing cost-effective, durable solutions in modern wind turbine design, particularly in environments characterized by severe wind events.