Wind turbines - latest developments regarding fatigue (Fatigue and Fracture)

Mission Statement/Objectives
Mission Statement The construction industry plays a key role due to its resource consumption, waste volume as well as energy consumption and CO2 Emission. Taking into account the global challenges such as climate change and raw material shortage and, especially in future, the population growth and urbanization, an efficient and intelligent use of material und energy is essential along the whole life cycle to ensure a sustainable development of cities, to build resilient infrastructure and to enable affordable and green energy. Especially for wind turbines and bridges, advanced fatigue design methods are required to reach these Sustainable Development Goals. These methods enable not only optimized life time predictions and elongated remaining service life, but also opens new possibilities of condition-based assessment and condition-based maintenance. Therefore, it is essential to discuss and further develop these innovations among international experts and provide best practice example for the engineering practice.

Scope & Limitation

The focus of the task group is to enable the exchange between experienced engineers and young professionals as well the exchange between academia and practice by establishing a Structural Engineering Documents (SED) with best practice examples on recent developments and future trends in advanced fatigue design methods for optimized life time predictions and elongated remaining service life of wind turbine structures (onshore, offshore or floating).

The phrase ‘fatigue design methods’ is supposed to include several subtopics:

A) fatigue design, using conventional and advanced fatigue design methods (e.g., fracture mechanics, damage calculations)

B) the use and the statistical evaluation of measurement data

C) condition-based assessment and condition-based maintenance

D) non-destructive testing

However, the task group is open for any adjacent topic regarding fatigue and fracture.

There is no limitation to certain materials, as long as the focus is on materials anchored in civil engineering design standards, e.g. steel or concrete.

Expected Project Output
The expected output of the Task Group is a Structural Engineering Documents (SED). It is intended to provide best practice example for the engineering practice with the focus on advanced fatigue design methods and optimized life time predictions.

Start Date: January 2024
Target Date of Completion: December 2025

Chair
Markus Knobloch, Germany

Vice Chair
Marion Rauch, Germany

Members