Structural Design and Safety Analysis for Optimized Segmentation of Wind Turbine Blades with Composite Materials

The study of segmentation of wind turbine blades has recently emerged as an area of interest. In this work, a segmented blade design was studied for transport. Wind turbine blades are becoming larger to generate higher power. Enlarging the wind turbine blade, however, leads to increasing its weight and length. Enlarged wind turbine blades, however, become more difficult to transport. Therefore, this study designed the existing integral blade as the segmented type to make transport easy regardless of its length or weight. We propose a novel concept for wind turbine blade design. The joint part of the blade was designed with an adhesion method that improved the bolt fastened one. The adhesion method was used to minimize the increase in blade weight and also to make maintenance easier. The final blade segmentation position was determined and accordingly the structural design was performed. Finally, a longitudinal 50% point of blade was determined as the segmentation position. The safety factor for the blade’s joint part was 2.39. The safety of the design results was proven.