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Fully-reversed fatigue behavior of scarf joint repairs for wind turbine blade shell applications
(2022)
Due to manufacturing imperfections which can propagate to damage under in-service loads, wind turbine rotor blades, made primarily of glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP), often fail significantly before their design life. To enable a quick and cost-effective return to service, localized repairs can be executed by technicians in the field, directly accessing the blades by suspended roping. Scarf joint repairs, shown to be highly efficient with a smooth load transition across angled joint walls and a restored aerodynamic profile, are the focus of this study. The damage mechanisms of these structures were examined under fully-reversed mechanical cyclic loading with a load ratio R = -1, which was made possible on the coupon scale by a custom designed anti-buckling support. The number of cycles to failure were compared across load levels. While the scarf joint ratio was held constant at 1:50, known from industry and literature to be a good compromise between restored mechanical properties and repair size, the layup sequence was varied between small-to-large and large-to-small. Hereby the effect of the presence of resin pockets and fiber orientation mismatch between the parent and repair structure on the failure mechanism as well as fatigue strength of ±45° GFRP scarf joint repair structures was studied. Strain development across the joint length was measured to assess stiffness degradation in addition to the fatigue strength recovery of scarf joint structures with respect to pristine reference specimens. Grayscale analysis was used to monitor the damage state leading to fracture across the specimens. Post-mortem fractography analysis with light microscopy described the global failure mechanisms as well as local damage distribution within the structure, all of which provided insight to critical variables in scarf joint GFRP structures under fully-reversed mechanical cyclic loading, allowing for the tailoring of such repairs on wind turbine blade shells for maximum restoration of service life.
Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) materials in practical applications have to endure cyclic mechanical loading in a wide temperature range (e.g. aircraft applications, automotive, wind turbine blades). In this study the static strength and fatigue behavior of GFRP was investigated in a temperature range from 213 K to 343 K. Therefor the coefficients of thermal expansion of the composite as well as the matrix are measured in this temperature interval. The inverse laminate theory was extended and used to calculate the inter fiber-failure effort for a virtual UD-layer according to the layer wise strength approach. The experimentally determined results are compared with the micro-mechanical model according to Krimmer, which has been enhanced to include the effect of temperature and fiber-perpendicular failure modes. A correlation between matrix effort, the dilatational strain energy of the matrix and the damage state of the specimen is demonstrated. It is shown that a fatigue life assessment can be performed with the aid of a temperature-independent master fatigue curve, as it was similar done for the fatigue behavior of CFRP and GFRP to very high load cycles at room temperature.
Wind turbine rotor blade shells are manufactured as sandwich structures with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) due to the material’s high specific stiffness and strength. With a growing renewable energy industry and thereby a spread of wind energy farms, especially in offshore applications, the need to fully utilize turbines through their designed lifespan is becoming increasingly essential. However, due to imperfections during manufacturing, which are then propagated by harsh environmental conditions and a variety of loads, blades often fail before their projected lifespan. Thus, the need for localized repair patch methods for the outer shell portions of the blades has become of greater interest in recent years, as it is crucial to the optimal compromise between continuation of wind energy production, cost efficiency, and restoration of structural performance. To increase the understanding of the effect on the fatigue life of the rotor blades, this study tests localized repair patch methods and compares them to each other as well as to reference, non-repaired specimens. Manufactured with the vacuum-assisted resin infusion process, the shell test specimens are produced as a curved structure with glass FRP sandwiching a polyvinyl chloride foam core to best represent a portion of a rotor blade shell. Patch repairs are then introduced with varying layup techniques, and material properties are examined with cyclic fatigue tests. The intermediate scale test specimens allow for the observation of material as well as structural variables, namely of interest being the stiffness and strength restoration due to the repair patches. Damage onset, crack development, and eventual failure are monitored with in-situ non-destructive testing methods to develop a robust understanding of the effects of repair concepts.
9-12% Cr ferritic-martensitic stainless steels are widely used as high temperature construction materials in power plants due to their excellent creep and oxidation resistance. The growing share of renewable energy sources in power generation forces many of these plants into more flexible operation with frequent load shifts or shutdowns. These cyclic operation profiles constitute a major lifetime issue. The present contribution reports on current findings obtained in a multidisciplinary project which combines cyclic mechanical and cyclic oxidation testing of different 9-12% Cr grades with detailed microstructural analyses.
Mechanical analyses are carried out on P92 and P91 steel grades to give an overview of softening phenomena and lifetimes obtained in isothermal cyclic loading (low cycle fatigue, LCF), non-isothermal cyclic loading (thermo-mechanical fatigue, TMF), and service-like combinations of creep and fatigue periods.
Complementary microstructural investigations by scanning and transmission electron microscopy plus EBSD are used for phase identification, substrate/oxide interface characterization and quantification of the microstructure evolution under cyclic conditions.