Analysis of wind turbine hub component

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1606641 (Table of Contents)

Wind energy has become one of the most popular renewable energy sources in the last few decades due to renewed awareness for environmental issues. Pollution and global warming are the most significant problems in the world. Many wars have been made to control and possess energy resources. Environmental issues caused by fossil energy production facilities have attracted attention to global warming, air and water pollution in recent years. Therefore, governments and universities encourage research and development efforts in wind turbine technology to achieve more efficient turbines with less cost. Wind turbine technology became of the most important engineering subjects in recent years. In this thesis, the analysis of the rotor hub of a 500 kW prototype wind turbine has been conducted. The hub has been modeled and meshed using commercially available code HyperMesh. The hub is modeled with its neighboring components to achieve a more realistic and detailed simulation. 3D design has been created in SolidWorks. Contacts and loads have been defined using commercially available finite element code ABAQUS. In other words, modeling process has been completed in ABAQUS. Structural analysis has been performed for two different scenarios which were chosen as the worst case extreme operating conditions. Analysis results have been examined for different perspectives. Especially, stress values and contacts have been considered. Finally, fatigue analyses have been conducted using commercially available code FEMFAT. Reaction of the material against dynamic loading has been examined.