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Article

Fatigue Load Analysis of Yawed Wind Turbines Considering Geometric Nonlinearity of Blades

1
State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
2
School of Ocean Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University & Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519082, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Energies 2025, 18(19), 5290; https://doi.org/10.3390/en18195290
Submission received: 2 August 2025 / Revised: 24 September 2025 / Accepted: 3 October 2025 / Published: 6 October 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Wind Energy and Wind Turbines)

Abstract

Fatigue damage of yawed wind turbine components can be caused by repeated long-term unsteady asymmetric inflow loads across the rotor swept area, necessitating fatigue load analysis to ensure the in-operation safety of wind turbines. This study investigates the impact of geometric nonlinearity on the fatigue loads of wind turbine components. The geometrically exact beam theory (GEBT), implemented in BeamDyn of OpenFAST, is employed to model full geometric nonlinearity. For comparison, ElastoDyn in OpenFAST, which uses the generalized Euler–Bernoulli beam theory for straight isotropic beams, is also utilized. Aeroelastic simulations were conducted for the national renewable energy laboratory (NREL 5 MW) and international energy agency (IEA) 15 MW wind turbines. Fatigue loads, quantified by the damage equivalent load (DEL) based on Palmgren–Miner’s rule, were analyzed for critical components, including blade out-of-plane (OOP) moments, low-speed shaft (LSS) torque, LSS bending moment (LSSBM), and tower base bending moment (TBBM). Results indicate that geometric nonlinearity significantly influences fatigue damage in critical turbine components, with significant differences observed between BeamDyn and ElastoDyn simulations.
Keywords: fatigue load; wind turbine; aerodynamic response; geometric nonlinearity; yaw offset fatigue load; wind turbine; aerodynamic response; geometric nonlinearity; yaw offset

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MDPI and ACS Style

Hirgeto, D.H.; Qian, G.-W.; Zhou, X.-Y.; Wang, W. Fatigue Load Analysis of Yawed Wind Turbines Considering Geometric Nonlinearity of Blades. Energies 2025, 18, 5290. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18195290

AMA Style

Hirgeto DH, Qian G-W, Zhou X-Y, Wang W. Fatigue Load Analysis of Yawed Wind Turbines Considering Geometric Nonlinearity of Blades. Energies. 2025; 18(19):5290. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18195290

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hirgeto, Dereje Haile, Guo-Wei Qian, Xuan-Yi Zhou, and Wei Wang. 2025. "Fatigue Load Analysis of Yawed Wind Turbines Considering Geometric Nonlinearity of Blades" Energies 18, no. 19: 5290. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18195290

APA Style

Hirgeto, D. H., Qian, G.-W., Zhou, X.-Y., & Wang, W. (2025). Fatigue Load Analysis of Yawed Wind Turbines Considering Geometric Nonlinearity of Blades. Energies, 18(19), 5290. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18195290

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