Hello
I am trying to study the effect of bend-twist coupling on the structural mechanics of a wind turbine blade using FAST. In order to incorporate the coupling using the anisotropic property of composite laminates can I possibly change the stiffness matrices in the blade input file with the laminate stiffnesses? Is that enough?
Dear Dhivya,
There are two ways to induce bend-twist coupling in a blade…through the geometry of the blade and through an anisotropic composite laminate layup. Both of these effects can be simulated in the BeamDyn module of FAST / OpenFAST. For the latter, BeamDyn allows the user to specify the full 6x6 stiffness matrix at each beam cross section, which allows for analyzing any anisotropic composite laminate layup.
Best regards,