Model calibration and uncertainty of A600 wind turbine blades

Paper in proceeding, 2014

Recently, a lot of work has been made on modeling, testing and calibrating Ampair 600W wind turbine blades, owing to the use of that turbine as a test bed structure for the Dynamic Substructuring Focus Group within the Society of Experimental Mechanics. In Sweden alone, more than 20 blades have been tested for dynamical properties, geometrical differences and material properties as was presented in several papers at IMAC XXXI. The quantity of blades, originating from different manufacturing batches, makes them ideal for investigations of component variability. In this paper, measurement variability predominantly stemming from the difference between individual blades is propagated backwards to model parameters, using model calibration techniques, in an effort to quantify their uncertainties. The coupling between spread in structural properties such as mass, center of gravity together blade twist angles and spread in the resulting blade dynamics is shown.