Abstract
Composite wind turbine blades must sustain aerodynamic, inertial, and gravitational loads, as well as mitigate operational conditions in case of hail and bird strike. Herein we present a methodology for the damage assessment of bird impact on a preloaded composite wind turbine blade. Structural response of the blade is evaluated through finite element simulations addressing its static and dynamic behavior focusing on deformation, stresses, damage mechanisms, and energy absorption. The results of the 2kg-bird impact study revealed that the service loads of the 80 meter blade did not accelerate the damage progression. Overall conclusion is that the 5 meter tip-sectional blade of the computational study is an acceptable target structure for bird impact tests instead of the full scale blade.