FATIGUE LIFE PREDICTION OF BASALT- CARBON HYBRID COMPOSITE FOR WIND TURBINE ROTOR BLADES

Modem wind turbine blade sizes are increasing, and the driving motivation behind
this is to increase the efficiency and energy output per unit rotor area. However, due
to the increase in size, the material selection for wind turbine has become critical and
complex. Fatigue resistance of composite materials used in wind turbine rotor blades
has been recognized as a major uncertainty in predicting the reliability of wind
turbines over their design lifetime. The main challenges related to existing wind
turbine rotor blade materials are low fatigue resistance, low compressive strength, low
ultimate strain and high cost. To overcome these issues, research is needed to
introduce new materials for wind turbine rotor blades. With this aim, in the present
work, fatigue life of basalt-carbon/epoxy hybrid composite was studied on different
lay-ups and the potential of this new hybrid composite was analyzed for wind turbine
rotor blades. Six symmetrical lamination stacking sequences with eight layers of
unidirectional 0° and biaxial ± 45° were selected for the current study.