Relating Turbulence to Wind Turbine Blade Loads: Parametric Study with Multiple Regression Analysis

Abstract

Different wind parameters are studied to find a set that is most useful in estimating fatigue loads on wind turbine blades. The histograms of rainflow counted stress ranges are summarized through their first three statistical moments and regression analysis is used to estimate these moments in various wind conditions. A systematic method of comparing the ability of different wind parameters to estimate the moments is described and results are shown for flapwise loads on three HAWTs. In the case of two of these turbines, the stress ranges are shown to be highly correlated with a turbulence measure obtained by removing a portion of the low-frequency content of the wind.