Scaled Composite I-Beams for Subcomponent Testing of Wind Turbine Blades: An Experimental Study

摘要

Full-scale testing of large composite structures is time-consuming and very expensive. Scaled-down models can facilitate time- and cost-effective experimental evaluations of large structures. Due to the special characteristics of laminated composite structures, the design of a scaled-down model of a large composite structure can be challenging. Moreover, the similarity and correlation between the reduced-scaled model and the full-scale structure need to be demonstrated before the experimental data from testing of a scaled-down model can be used for predicting the behavior of the full-scale structure. In this study, laminated composite I-beam reduced-scale models in three different size scales are designed from the spar caps and the shear web geometry of a utility-scale wind turbine blade. The designed composite I-beams are manufactured and tested in a quasi-static four-point bending configuration, and the strain distributions of the loaded small, medium and large beams are measured using the digital image correlation technique. The strain fields of the three beams are compared and similarity of the strain distribution in the three scales is demonstrated.