Development of thermal residual stresses during manufacture of wind turbine blades

Thermal residual stresses have a major impact on the bond line fatigue of wind turbine blades, which can initiate tunneling cracks in the adhesive layer of the bond lines early in the operational life of the blade. This work investigates the simulation accuracy for predicting thermal residual stresses within a thick bond line. The trailing-edge bond line strip of a 34 m blade was modeled with classical laminated plate theory (CLT) on the one hand and with finite element (FE) plate models of different fidelities on the other. For the model benchmark, the thermal residual stresses were on the basis of a thermal simulation. These develop during the cooling after a typical curing cycle of a wind turbine blade manufacturing process. It was found that the analytical model on the basis of CLT was in good agreement with the plate models of higher fidelity. Additionally, a full 3D FE blade model was used to calculate the shape distortion and the thermal residual stresses. It was found that the analytical model, which did not take into account effects stemming from the whole blade structure, underestimated the full 3D FE model.