Lightweight optimal rotor design of a 10MW-scale wind turbine using passive load control methods

Abstract The present paper investigates the potential to reduce the mass of the blade of the 10MW DTU Reference Wind Turbine through build-in, material bend-twist coupling (BTC). It is materialized by introducing an offset angle on the plies of the uni-directional material over the spar caps of the blade. Optimum BTC designs are obtained on the basis of an integrated optimization framework combining an aeroelastic solver for the calculation of the structural loads of the blade and a cross-sectional tool that provides beam-like structural properties of the blade and stresses distributions. The derived designs are verified based on a subset of representative fatigue and ultimate design loads cases of IEC 61400-1. Reduction of the combined bending moment at the root of the blade by 5% and reduction of the blade mass by 10% is achieved with a hybrid model consisting of three span-wise segments having different constant ply offset angles.