A Comparison of the Fatigue Strength of Repair Welded Nodular Cast Iron Materials for Usage in Wind Energy Components

Thick-walled cast components made of nodular cast iron for wind energy turbines are usually not completely free of local material defects. Foundries strive to reduce their component rejects, especially when it comes to wind energy components with masses up to several tens of tons. One measure is to remove the defect by a defined manufacturing and subsequent welding process. Within the research project nodularWELD, the possibilities of weldings for thick-walled nodular cast iron are investigated. Whereas in the first steps the weldability of ferritic and ferritic silicon solid-solution strengthened nodular cast iron were determined for different welding fillers, in further steps the cyclic material behavior of the base and welded material condition were determined by cyclic material investigations.