Stall Nonlinear Flutter of Wind Turbine Blade Modeled as Thin-walled Composite Beam Integrated with Structural Damping

The effects of structural damping on the aeroelastic stability have been investigated for composite thin-walled blade. Structural model of the composite thin-walled blade exhibits bending-bending-twist coupling, with accounting for the presence of pretwist angle. The aerodynamic model used in the present paper is the differential dynamic stall model developed at ONERA. The structural damping of the blade is predicted based on the analytical formulas of the modal damping of thin-walled composite structure. The effect of structural damping on aeroelastic stability is taken into account by using proportional damping matrix. By means of Galerkin method, the nonlinear aeroelastic equations are reduced to ordinary equations. The general aerodynamic forces are obtained from strip theory. The resulting equations are then linearized for small perturbation about the equilibrium point and the stability characteristics are investigated through eigenvalue analysis and time domain integration.