Fatigue load estimations of intermittent wind dynamics based on a Blade Element Momentum method

Fatigue loads related to a statistical feature of wind are investigated: Super-Gaussian distributed wind velocity increments as a result of intermittency of turbulence and their impact on the longevity of wind turbines are in the focus. Two types of synthetic wind fields are fed to a common Blade-Element Momentum theory based wind turbine model of the NREL 5MW reference wind turbine. A special effort has been made in the generation of these fields in order to isolate the effect of the increment statistics. Besides these intended differences other statistical features like mean wind speed, turbulence intensity and spectral properties and coherence are equivalent. Based on these wind field characteristics, we are able to show an increase in fatigue loading.