Development and validation of a finite element software facilitating large-displacement aeroelastic analysis of wind turbines

Abstract

This thesis establishes necessary theory for the geometrically nonlinear dynamic analysis of spatial beam structures by the corotational formulation of finite el- ements. By extending an existing framework that is capable of finite element modeling as well as computing aerodynamic forces, a code is developed that facil- itates the aeroelastic analysis of wind turbines, where the effects of large rotations and deflections of the blades are captured. Verification of the code is carried out first by basic tests, and then by comparing the computed response of a wind tur- bine model with other codes for wind turbine design. Results are shown to be in good agreement with other codes.