A Study of Load Comparison of Two- and Three-Bladed Rotor Wind Turbines

In this study, load effects of identically rated power two- and three-bladed rotor wind turbines are computed and compared using the requirements of the IEC61400-3 standard. The two-bladed turbine includes a teeter mechanism. Moreover, an improved blade design is considered for the two-bladed turbine. A series of wind turbine operational simulations was performed for the wind turbine models under selected design load cases of IEC61400-3 standard. Loads were computed using the FAST code. The series of simulations were driven and post-processed using the FAST_SM code. Additionally, fatigue damages of the two- and three-bladed rotor wind turbines were computed. The study showed that the maximum load effects and fatigue damage of the two-bladed wind turbine generally increased compared to the three-bladed turbine. The simulation results also showed that the baseline design blade of the two-bladed wind turbine requires improvement in order to sustain the computed large load effects.