A review on failure modes of wind turbine components

Abdul Ghani Olabi*, Tabbi Wilberforce, Khaled Elsaid, Enas Taha Sayed, Tareq Salameh, Mohammad Ali Abdelkareem, Ahmad Baroutaji

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

To meet the increasing energy demand, renewable energy is considered the best option. Its patronage is being encouraged by both the research and industrial community. The main driving force for most renewable systems is solar energy. It is abundant and pollutant free compared to fossil products. Wind energy is also considered an abundant medium of energy generation and often goes hand in hand with solar energy. The last few decades have seen a sudden surge in wind energy compared to solar energy due to most wind energy systems being cost effective compared to solar energy. Wind turbines are often categorised as large or small depending on their application and energy generation output. Sustainable materials for construction of different parts of wind turbines are being encouraged to lower the cost of the system. The turbine blades and generators perform crucial roles in the overall operation of the turbines; hence, their material composition is very critical. Today, most turbine blades are made up of natural fiber‐reinforced polymer (NFRP) as well as glass fiber‐reinforced polymer (GFRP). Others are also made from wood and some metallic materials. Each of the materials introduced has specific characteristics that affect the system’s efficiency. This investigation explores the influence of these materials on turbine efficiency. Observations have shown that composites reinforced with nanomaterials have excellent mechanical characteristics. Carbon nanotubes have unique characteristics that may make them valuable in wind turbine blades in the future. It is possible to strengthen carbon nanotubes with various kinds of resins to get a variety of different characteristics. Similarly, the end‐of‐life treatment methods for composite materials is also presented.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5241
JournalEnergies
Volume14
Issue number17
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Copyright: © 2021 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).

Keywords

  • Composite material
  • Cost analysis
  • Failure mode
  • Turbine blade

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