Analysis and Research on the Cause of Wind Turbine Blade Bolt Fracture
Abstract In 2019, inspection personnel of a wind farm went to the tower and found that a total of 6 bolts of blades in the hub of a wind turbine had broken and failed. In order to find out the cause of fracture, the fracture bolt was comprehensively detected and analyzed by means of appearance morphology analysis, chemical composition analysis, mechanical properties testing, microstructure testing and fracture micro-area analysis. The results show that the main reasons for the bolt fracture are as follows: under the action of the bolt’s constantly changing and repeated wind load impact and the alternating load caused by blade rotation during the operation of the fan, the crack source is formed along the bottom of the thread with serious stress concentration and expands in fatigue mode until the whole fracture fails.