Effect of Load Phase Angle on Wind Turbine Blade Fatigue Damage: Preprint

This paper examines the importance of phase angle variations with respect to fatigue damage. The operating loads on a generic conventional three-bladed upwind 1.5-MW wind turbine blade were analyzed over a range of operating conditions, and an aggregate probability distribution for the actual phase angles between the in-plane (lead-lag) and out-of-plane (flap) loads was determined. Using a finiteelement model of a generic blade and Miner's Rule, the accumulated theoretical damage (based on axial strains) resulting from a fatigue test with variable phase angles was compared to the damage resulting from a fatigue test with a constant phase angle. The nodal damage distribution at specific blade cross-sections are compared for the constant and variable phase angle cases. The sequenceeffects of various phase angle progressions were also considered. For this analysis, the finite element results were processed using the nonlinear Marco-Starkey damage accumulation model. Each phase angle sequence was constrained to have the same overall phase angle distribution and the same total number of cycles but the order in which the phase angles were applied was varied.