The fatigue methodology aims to address the three main complexities associated with the fatigue evaluation problem for a tidal turbine blade – namely, the complexities in the loads, the material and the description of the fatigue phenomenon.
Loads - Loading conditions are defined by BV NI603 and applied blade forces are calculated with StarBlades.
Materials – ComposeIT is used for determining mechanical properties of laminates.
Fatigue phenomenon – Weibull law is applied for the probability distribution of stresses, UD specimens are tested in longitudinal and transverse direction, cumulative damage of each ply is estimated by Miner sum and total fatigue damage is evaluated for the blade.
