Innovative rail transport of a supersized land-based wind turbine blade

Abstract

Wind turbine blade logistic providers are being challenged with escalating costs and routing complexities as one-piece blade approach lengths of 75 m in various regions of the U.S. land-based market. New lower cost solutions are needed to enable further reductions in the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and continued market expansion. In this paper, a novel method of using existing U.S. rail infrastructure to deploy 100-m, one-piece blades to U.S. land-based wind sites is numerically investigated. The study removes the constraint that blades must be kept rigid during transport, and it allows bending to keep blades within a clearance profile while navigating horizontal and vertical curvatures. Novel system optimization and blade design processes consider blade structural constraints and rail logistic constraints in parallel to develop a highly flexible, rail-transportable blade. Results indicate maximum deployment potential in the Interior region of the United States and limited deployment potential in other regions. The study concludes that innovative rail transportation solutions combined with advanced rotor technologies can provide a feasible alternative to segmentation and support continued LCOE reductions in the U.S. land-based wind energy market.

A review of impact loads on composite wind turbine blades: Impact threats and classification

“…Increasing size and dimensions of wind turbine blades pose challenges during transportation, both for onshore and offshore wind industry [50]. For sites that are located onshore, wind turbine blades have to be transported either through roads, rail or a combination [50,51] (Fig. 6(a)).…”

Big Adaptive Rotor Phase I Final Report

“…In turn, Subtask 1.B investigated the possibility of a "double dividend"-i.e., that taller towers and lower specific power might also enhance the market value of wind energy and provide other ancillary benefits. This work was ultimately published in a journal article (Wiser, Millstein, and Bolinger 2021), excerpted as follows 7 :…”

“…. This design has a flapwise stiffness that meets the requirements for controlled bending during rail transportation (Carron, Scott, and Bortolotti 2020). The spar caps are made of glass fiber and are thinner than in BAR-UAG.…”

“…The constraints limited the ultimate strains in the spar caps to 3,500 microstrain and, for the upwind configurations, the maximum blade tip deflection. In addition, a novel model to simulate the rail transportation of blades via controlled bending added a constraint on blade flapwise stiffness (Carron, Scott, and Bortolotti 2020). A separate optimization sized the tower for the baseline configuration, whereas the recently updated drivetrain model was used iteratively within the design loop to have a preliminary sizing of the geared drivetrain configuration for all designs.…”

Comparing wind turbine aeroelastic response predictions for turbines with increasingly flexible blades

“…Specifically, rail transportation of larger blades must be able to accommodate bends with up to 13degree lateral curves [3] in the tracks without the blades suffering structural damage. These curves limit current blades to 75 meters long, but large-scale rotors can have blades upwards of 100 meters long [2].…”