Modeling and Optimization for the Dynamic Performance of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine Composite Blades

This article presents a study of modeling and optimization for the dynamic performance of wind turbine composite material blades and investigates the effects of composite material stacking sequence in addition to some design parameters such as twist angle (ɸ) and aspect ratio (AR) on the whole wind turbine performance. The two-stage Savonius rotor VAWT composite blades are designed and simulated within the solidworks simulation 2020 package. Modified mechanical parameters are introduced to improve the scalability, reliability, and accuracy of the developed models. The lamination plate theory is used to compute the equivalent mechanical properties for each composite blade. The finite element analyses (FEAs) are conducted to investigate the dynamic characteristics (frequency and associated mode shapes) of wind turbine models. Taguchi tools such as analysis of variance (ANOVA), signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and additive model were employed to evaluate and obtain the significant factors and determine the optimal combination levels of wind turbine design parameters. Mathematical modeling based on response surface methodology (RSM) has been established. The analysis of results shows that the aspect ratio with a contribution of 48.08% had the dominant impact on the rotor performance followed by the stacking sequence and twist angle.