Inter Laminar Failure Characterization Using Refined Delamination Factor in Composite Wind Turbine Blade

The role of power extracted from wind turbine cannot be excluded from the context of power extraction from the renewable sources of energy. Rotating blades of the turbine convert the kinetic energy of wind into useful power. Utilization of renewable wind energy in India has increased many fold from the last decade of the 20th century. The wind turbine blades were fabricated using glass fiber reinforced composite materials. To improve the strength of the blades under varying loading conditions, spars were embedded in it. The spars were fastened with the composite shells of the blades using bolted connections. As to affect this fastening, holes of appropriate size were drilled in the composite laminates. Drilling is most widely applied to composite materials; but damage induced by this operation may reduce drastically the component performance. For establishing the damage level, delamination was measured quantitatively using digital means. A comparison between existing conventional (FD) and adjusted (FDA) delamination factor is presented with the proposed refined delamination factor (FDR). The accuracy of the proposed criteria was validated using the experimental results.