Development of a wind turbine canopy

The task

The order spec­i­fi­ca­tions of the medium-sized manu­fac­turer were very basic: Only a rough outline of the nacelle was given as a sketch, including a few attach­ment points in the housing, which served as fixed points for the assembly of adja­cent compo­nents and struc­tures. Further­more, a large number of load cases were spec­i­fied. The aim of this project was to holis­ti­cally develop an econom­i­cally producible compo­nent on the basis of the rough spec­i­fi­ca­tions - from the devel­op­ment of the concept to the simu­la­tion and opti­mi­sa­tion of the compo­nent in accor­dance with the boundary condi­tions spec­i­fied by the customer to the creation of the produc­tion plan and certi­fi­ca­tion of the struc­ture.

The chal­lenges and solu­tions in detail

Based on the only roughly defined spec­i­fi­ca­tions from the customer, a very complex struc­ture with many inter­faces to adja­cent compo­nents had to be devel­oped. The large number of complex load cases required a special approach to design analysis using FEM. Here, existing methods were adapted to the special task and an econom­i­cally attrac­tive solu­tion was found through auto­mated calcu­la­tion processes.

Often, a light­weight struc­ture is not directly the best way to go in terms of manu­fac­turing. In order for our design to lead to a light­weight compo­nent that meets all the spec­i­fi­ca­tions set by the customer and the certi­fier, close coop­er­a­tion with the manu­fac­turing depart­ment and a good sense of propor­tion for a feasible struc­ture were essen­tial. To this end, the concepts devel­oped and their imple­men­ta­tion approaches were discussed directly with the customer’s produc­tion engi­neering depart­ment and thus included in the solu­tion finding process in the best possible way.

Our know-how

The following compe­tences at ar engi­neers led to success in this project:

• Exten­sive expe­ri­ence with large fibre composite struc­tures in the areas of wind, offshore and maritime industry.
• Exper­tise in the real­i­sa­tion of complex compos­ites projects from the concept to the prepa­ra­tion of produc­tion docu­ments.
• Very good under­standing of composite manu­fac­turing.
• Expe­ri­enced view of the feasi­bility of the compo­nent despite complex mate­rial struc­ture.
• Great exper­tise in the calcu­la­tion of fibre composite compo­nents with many load cases.
• Substan­tial expe­ri­ence in the coor­di­na­tion of subpro­jects as well as effi­cient commu­ni­ca­tion with the customer and their client enabled the project to run smoothly.

Our way

First, the design-crit­ical load cases were iden­ti­fied by initially calcu­lating and eval­u­ating all load cases once. Based on this, the three driving load cases were iden­ti­fied so that the design process, in which the compo­nent still changed in terms of geom­etry and mate­rial selec­tion, could be carried out effi­ciently.

In close consul­ta­tion with the manu­fac­turing company and their client, a very good struc­ture was devel­oped. There­fore, the certi­fi­ca­tion process of the compo­nent, which we prepared and accom­pa­nied, went smoothly and the project was realised on time and on budget.