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 Journal of Sandwich Structures
and Materials
http://jsm.sagepub.com

Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades Present and Future

Ole Thybo Thomsen
Journal of Sandwich Structures and Materials 2009; 11; 7
DOI: 10.1177/1099636208099710

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 Sandwich Materials for Wind
Turbine Blades – Present and Future

OLE THYBO THOMSEN*

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aalborg University
Pontoppidanstræde 101, DK-9220 Aalborg East, Denmark

ABSTRACT: Wind turbine blades are being manufactured using polymer matrix
composite materials, in a combination of monolithic (single skin) and sandwich
composites. Present day designs are mainly based on glass fiber-reinforced composites
(GFRP), but for very large blades carbon fiber-reinforced composites are being used
increasingly, in addition to GFRP by several manufacturers to reduce the weight.
The size of wind turbines have increased significantly over the last 25 years, and this
trend is expected to continue in the future. Thus, it is anticipated that wind turbines
with a rated power output in the range of 8–10 MW and a rotor diameter about
170–180 m will be developed and installed within the next 10–15 years. The article
presents an overview of current day design principles and materials technology applied
for wind turbine blades, and it highlights the limitations and important design issues to
be addressed for up-scaling of wind turbine blades from the current maximum length
in excess of 61 m to blade lengths in the vicinity of 90 m as envisaged for future very
large wind turbines. In particular, the article discusses the potential advantages and
challenges of applying sandwich type construction to a larger extent than is currently
being practiced for the load-carrying parts of wind turbine blades.

KEY WORDS: composite wind turbine blades, sandwich, design, challenges.

INTRODUCTION

ODERN WIND TURBINES are becoming increasingly larger. The largest

M present day wind turbines have rated power output of 5 MW and
rotor diameters in excess of 126 m. The driving motivation behind this is that
larger wind turbines have larger energy output per unit rotor area due to
increased mean wind velocity with height. Moreover, even though larger
wind turbines are more expensive than smaller ones, the general trend is that
the total production cost per kilowatt hour of electricity produced decreases
with increasing wind turbine size. The development of wind turbine size

*E-mail: ott@ime.aau.dk
Figures 1–3, 5, 9 and 10 appear in color online: http://jsm.sagepub.com

Journal of SANDWICH STRUCTURES AND MATERIALS, Vol. 11—January 2009 7

1099-6362/09/01 0007–20 $10.00/0 DOI: 10.1177/1099636208099710
ß SAGE Publications 2009
Los
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8 O. T. THOMSEN

Wind turbine sizes 5 MW

1978-2004 126.3 m

70 m
1500 kw

30 m 45 m
330 kw 750 kw

16 m
50 kw

1978 1988 1998 2002 2004

Figure 1. Development of wind turbine size, 1978–2004 (courtesy of LM Glasfiber A/S).

since the late 1970s is illustrated schematically in Figure 1, and for

comparison Figure 2 displays the dimensions of the largest civil aircraft at
present time, e.g., the Boeing 747 and the Airbus A380.
The size of wind turbines size is expected to increase also in the future,
primarily for off-shore placement, and turbines with rated power output of
10 MW and rotor diameter of 180 m are envisaged within the next 10–15
years. In particular, the EU project UpWind (Upwind, 2006), which is a
5-year so-called Integrated Project involving some 40 manufacturers, service
providers, universities, research organizations, and other professional
organizations, will explore and resolve design limits for very large wind
turbines to be built after 2010. Present design methods and the available
components and materials do not allow up-scaling of wind turbine size as
quoted, and to achieve the necessary up-scaling before 2020, UpWind will
address a number of areas that are considered critical in achieving this,
including innovative materials with a sufficient strength to mass ratio and
structural and material design of rotors.
Modern wind turbine blades are high performance and hybrid material
structures that are being manufactured using polymer matrix composite
materials (PMC), in a combination of monolithic (single skin) and sandwich
composites. Present day designs are mainly based on glass fiber-reinforced
composites (GFRP), but for very large blades carbon fiber-reinforced

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 9

Boeing 747 Airbus A380

Seating: 416 Seating: 555

(max 840)
Internal cabin
Width: 6.1m Internal cabin
Width: 6.58m 79.8m
64.4m

70.7m 73m
19.4m 24.1m

London bus to scale Source: Airbus/Boeing

Figure 2. Dimensions of passenger aircraft Boeing 747 and Airbus A380.

composites (CFRP) are being used increasingly, in addition to GFRP by

several manufacturers to reduce the weight.
The term ‘sandwich composites’ mentioned above refers to sandwich
materials/structures, which can be considered as a special type of composite
laminate where two (or more) thin, stiff, strong and relatively dense faces
(composite laminates in the present context) are separated by a thick,
lightweight and compliant core material. Such sandwich structures have
gained widespread acceptance as an excellent way to obtain extremely
lightweight components and structures with very high bending stiffness, high
strength, and high buckling resistance.
The article presents an overview of current day design principles and
materials technology applied for wind turbine blades, and it highlights
the limitations and design issues to be addressed for up-scaling of wind
turbine blades from the current maximum length in excess of 61 m to
blade lengths in the vicinity of 90 m as envisaged for future very large
wind turbines. In particular, the article discusses the potential advantages
and challenges of applying sandwich type construction to a larger extent
than is currently being done for the different load-carrying parts of wind
turbine blades. Future wind turbine applications may include other
(and entirely new) concepts than the present day standard of the ‘3 blade
upwind high-speed aero-generator’ type, but the discussion in the following
will be based on the assumption that future very large wind turbines will also
be based on this concept.

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10 O. T. THOMSEN

LOAD CONDITIONS, CURRENT BLADE

DESIGNS, AND FAILURE MODES

Most modern wind turbine blades are designed with a load-carrying main
spar that supports an outer aerodynamic shell, see Figure 3. Globally the
blade should be sufficiently stiff in order not to collide with the tower during
operational and extreme loading. Locally the spar together with the stiffness
of the outer shell ensures that the shape of the aerodynamic profile is
maintained as stable as possible.

Load Conditions

The loading on a wind turbine blade consist of the following (Risø/

DNS, 2002):
. Flapwise and edgewise bending due to the pressure load on the blade
(skew bending).
. Gravitational loads, which change direction during the rotation of the
blade, and which mainly generate edgewise bending loading.
. Torsional loading because the shear resultants of the flap- and edgewise
loads do not go through the shear centre of the blade section.
. Normal loading due to the rotation of the blade (inertia forces).
. Relative small loads due to pitch de-accelerations and accelerations.
The latter three have very little influence on the design loads, and it is the
flapwise and edgewise loads that determine the structural design and
the blade cross sections. The spar carries most of the flapwise bending, while
the edgewise bending primarily is carried of by the leading and trailing edges
of the aerodynamic profile, which are strengthened due to this.
The maximum flapwise bending load corresponds to the situation when
the turbine has been brought to a standstill due to high wind, and the blade

Assembly Leading edge

Pressure side shell

Trailing edge
Main spar Edgewise
bending Flapwise bending

Suction side shell

Figure 3. Wind turbine blade components. Courtesy of Vestas Wind Systems A/S.

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 11

is hit by the 50-year extreme gust wind. The maximum edgewise bending
load used in the design is derived from a combination of different loading
situations taken from dynamic simulations.
Wind turbine blades are subjected also to severe fatigue loads. Fatigue
analysis is performed for all critical sections of the blade, the blade root and
the load introduction parts. The fatigue strength verification shall be based
on characteristic S/N curves established for the laminates and the load
introduction parts. The allowable fatigue limit is usually based on an
equivalent strain measure corresponding to 107 cycles derived using an
appropriate damage accumulation hypothesis (Palmgren/Miner law).
The main drivers for fatigue are the flatwise and the edgewise bending
moments, as these two moments are responsible for 97% of the damage in
the blade. Because of this, it is in general sufficient to perform the fatigue
analysis with these two moments. For the fatigue analysis it is necessary to
consider the simultaneously acting bending moments, therefore the fatigue
analysis shall be performed with time series. Further details about the design
and loading of wind turbine blades can be found in Wacker (2003).

Current Blade Design Features

Figure 4 shows an airfoil section of a wind turbine blade with typical

design details of the main spar and the outer shell.
In Figures 3 and 4, the main spar and the wing shells appear as constituent
parts that are manufactured separately and then joined in a separate bonding
process. Some wind turbine blades are manufactured this way, but it is not
always the case. Thus, various manufacturers use different design and manu-
facturing concepts. Alternative designs, as compared with Figures 3 and 4,
may involve that the two wing shells are joined with two or more internal webs
(stiffeners) as shown schematically in Figure 5. In this conceptual design, the
wing shells are manufactured with relatively thick so-called spar-caps, which

(a) (b) Sandwich panel

Suction side
Toward tip Adhesive layer
Face Flange
Trailing edge
Core (load-carrying
laminate-compression)
X
Z
X Adhesive joint Y
Leading edge Adhesive Adhesive
Web joint
Y layer
Pressure side (sandwich)
Flange
Main spar (load-carrying laminate-tension)

Figure 4. (a) Wind turbine blade airfoil section with main spar and outer shells (aerodynamic
profile). (b) Design details of typical wind turbine blade.

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12 O. T. THOMSEN

Main spar flange

Main spar web Sandwich shell

Spar cap

Web
Shell panel
Figure 5. Different blade design concepts. Above: ‘Traditional’ design with internal main
spar. Below: Design with internal shear webs (Kühlmeier, 2007).

are usually monolithic composite laminates. Other wind turbine manufac-

turers have adopted a manufacturing technique, where the entire blade structure
including internal webs/stiffeners is manufactured in one single process.
The manufacturing techniques used may differ very much with different
manufacturers, but generally the production of wind turbine blades is
based on either composite prepreg technology or vacuum assisted vacuum
infusion (VARTM or variations of this process). Irrespective of the one or
the other of the design concepts shown in Figure 5 are used, the main
structural principles described earlier apply, i.e., the flapwise bending load is
carried by a main spar or a ‘main spar-like’ structure (constituted by the
spar caps and internal webs/stiffeners), and the edgewise load is carried by
the shells.
As mentioned earlier, wind turbine blades are being manufactured using
PMC, in a combination of monolithic (single skin) and sandwich
composites. The composites laminated parts are either glass or carbon
fiber-reinforced polymers, while the sandwich core materials may be
polymeric foams (PVC or BMI), balsa wood core or less frequently of
honeycomb type (nomex). Considering the layout of wind turbine blades
(Figures 4 and 5), the following design feature are typically adopted:
. Wing shells: Composite sandwich laminates towards leading and trailing
edges to increase the buckling resistance (edgewise loading). With the

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 13

traditional blade design, see Figures 4 and 5 (top), the sandwich shell
parts are transferred into relatively thin monolithic composite laminates
in the areas where the shells are adhesively bonded to the main spar. For
the internal web/stiffener blade design, see below.
. Main spar: The main spar usually extends from the root of the blade to a
position close to the tip (Figure 3). As mentioned, the primary function of
the main spar is to transfer the bladewise bending load, and thus it has to
perform as a beam. The primary function of the flanges (Figures 4 and 5)
is to carry the flapwise bending moment, and they are usually made as
thick monolithic composite laminates, which for some large blades is
made using hybrid glass/carbon composites. The main spar lay-up
usually include UD-layers to provide for the bending stiffness as well as
off-axis or angle-ply layers (often biax) to provide for the buckling
resistance of the flange loaded in compression (suction side of airfoil).
The function of the webs (Figure 4) is to carry the flapwise shear forces,
and they are usually made as composite sandwich plates with polymeric
or balsa core and with thin composite face sheets (458 orientation
relative to blade length coordinate).
. Spar cap (Figure 5): The primary function of the spar cap section is
to carry the flapwise bending moment (Figures 3 and 5), and it is
usually made as a thick monolithic composite laminate, which for some
large blades is a hybrid glass/carbon composite. The carbon fibers
are used to enhance the bending stiffness of the blade. The main spar
lay-up usually include UD-layers to provide for the bending stiffness
as well as off-axis or angle-ply layers (often biax) to provide for the
buckling resistance of the flange loaded in compression (suction side
of airfoil).
. Internal webs/stiffeners (Figure 5): The function of the webs is to carry
the flapwise shear forces, and they are usually made as composite
sandwich plates with polymeric or balsa core and relatively with biax
laminate thin composite face sheets (458 orientation relative to blade
length coordinate). The sandwich design is chosen in order to enhance the
resistance against in-plane shear buckling.
The rotational stiffness of the corners between the flanges and the webs
for the ‘main spar design’ is of significant importance to accommodate
for sufficient buckling resistance of the flanges as well as to suppress the
tendency of ovalization, the so-called Brazier effect (Brazier 1927), of the
blade and main spar cross sections during flapwise bending. The same goes
for the rotational stiffness of the joints between the spar cap and the internal
webs/stiffeners for the ‘spar cap/internal stiffener design,’ however, to a
somewhat lesser degree.

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14 O. T. THOMSEN

Modes of Failure

Considering present day wind turbine blade designs, the single most
critical load is probably the flapwise bending load that arises when the
turbine has been brought to a standstill due to high wind, and the blade is
hit by the 50-year extreme gust wind assuming a uniform wind profile,
Risø/DNV (2002). As mentioned, this load is mainly resisted by the main
spar or a ‘main spar-like’ structure (constituted by the spar caps and internal
webs/stiffeners), which extends from the root of the blade to a position close
to the tip. The load-carrying flanges of this structure are usually made as
monolithic composite laminates, and thus large wind turbine blades will
have very large unstiffened monolithic shallow shell caps, which may be
sensitive to failure in local buckling. Experience shows, that local buckling
or a local ‘buckling-like’ mode is by far the governing failure mode for the
monolithic laminate design of the main spar flanges (Jørgensen et al., 2004;
Sørensen et al., 2004; Kühlmeier et al., 2005; Overgaard, 2005a, b;
Kühlmeier, 2007). The local ‘buckling-like’ mode of failure is strongly
governed by the presence of imperfections, which occurs due to variability of
the production facilities and methods. Examples of manufacturing
imperfections are thickness variations of the core materials in the webs,
angle misalignments of the composite layers for the flanges and geometric
imperfections due to section variations (Kühlmeier et al., 2005; Kühlmeier,
2007; Overgaard, 2005a, b).

POTENTIAL USE OF SANDWICH MATERIALS

IN WIND TURBINE BLADES?

From the previous chapter it is clear that sandwich materials or structural

elements already play a very important role in modern wind turbine blade
design. Thus, sandwich materials/elements are presently used for the wing
shells and the webs of the main spar, see Figures 4 and 5. In all cases, the
principal rationale behind the use of sandwich elements is to enhance the
buckling resistance and minimize the weight at the same time.
An interesting question in this context is whether it would be
advantageous to use composite sandwich materials/structures for more
structural parts than is practiced in current day wind turbine blades? Since
most blade parts are already based on sandwich materials, this reduces to
the question whether it will be advantageous if the main spar flanges are also
manufactured as composite sandwich materials/structures. To give a
meaningful answer to this question requires that the entire blade design
concept is re-evaluated considering all relevant load cases. This would be an
elaborate task, which is considered to be beyond the scope of this article.

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 15

However, on the basis of recent research it is possible to address the question

partially, and based on this give and indication of what the complete answer
might be. This will be discussed in the following, where only the flapwise
bending load case is discussed.
A number of criteria must be considered in the design of the main spar
including:
. global stiffness (blade tip deflection – tower clearance),
. buckling resistance (main flange or spar cap on suction side of airfoil),
. blade eigenfrequencies. The blade eigenfrequencies should not coincide
with the tower passing frequencies 1P and 3P. 4P can also be critical,
. material failure under static and fatigue loading. See Wacker (2003),
. local face instability of sandwich parts, Leissa (1985) and Zenkert (1995).
These criteria will be addressed in some detail in the forthcoming
discussion.

Optimized Blade Design Concepts based on ‘Discrete Material Optimization’

In the recent works by Stegmann and Lund (2005), Lund and Stegmann
(2006), and Lund et al. (2005), a new method for structural optimization of
laminated composite shell structures has been presented. The approach, known
as ‘discrete material optimization’ (DMO), is based on ideas from multiphase
topology optimization where the material stiffness (or density) is computed as
a weighted sum of candidate materials, and it is very easy to implement in
existing finite element analysis codes. In this way, the discrete problem of
choosing the best material (with the right orientation) is converted to a
continuous formulation where the design variables are the scaling factors (or
weight functions) on each candidate material. The design objective is chosen
to be a global quantity such as maximum stiffness (global stiffness), lowest
eigenfrequency, or maximum buckling load with a constraint on the total
mass, such that the cost of material can be considered. Local failure modes
such as material or wrinkling failure cannot be addressed in the approach at
present time, but further research is ongoing to include this as well.
The DMO method has been applied for maximum (global) stiffness design
optimization of a wind turbine main spar structure (Figure 3), as well as to
design optimization of a wind turbine ‘spar cap’ (Figure 5) with the objective
of increase the buckling load factor, taking weight considerations into
account. In all cases, the DMO method has been combined with linear finite
element analysis using composite shell elements. Here, only results related
to the maximum stiffness design of a blade main will be referenced, but
results concerning buckling load optimization ‘spar cap’ can be found in
Lund et al. (2005a) and Lund (2006).

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16 O. T. THOMSEN

Considering the problem of a wind turbine main spar, corresponding to the

a 25 m blade of a Vestas V52 Wind turbine (of Vestas Wind Systems A/S,
Denmark), subject to flapwise bending loading, as defined in Jørgensen et al.
(2004) and Overgaard (2005a), the DMO method has been used to propose a
design optimized for maximum stiffness in a global sense (Lund et al., 2005b;
Lund and Stegmann, 2005). The main spar is shown in Figure 6.
In the model there are two materials, a stiff GFRP material and a softer
isotropic material (core material), and the mass constraint is set such that
15% of the total volume should be filled with soft material. The number
of layers is set to 8, and the soft material can only be chosen for the six
interior layers since this material is not a realistic choice for the skin layers.
For simplicity, the GFRP material can only be oriented at 08, 458, and 908,
and therefore the number of design variables is four for the inner and outer
layers, and five for all six interior layers.
In Figure 7, the optimized material directions for the glass fiber are shown
for the eight layers. If the soft material has been chosen, then no directions
are shown. Layer 1 is the inner (bottom) layer and layer 8 the outer (top)
layer. As expected, most of the soft material has been put in the webs in the
internal layers close to the root of the main spar in lightly stressed areas. The
orientation of the GFRP material also corresponds well to what was
expected from the basic considerations made earlier regarding the load-
carrying mechanisms of the spar. In the flanges all layers are dominated by
the 08 orientation, i.e., along the length of the spar, to account for bending.
In the last third of the webs most GFRP material is oriented at 458 due to
shear and some torsion as the main spar is slightly twisted along the length.
The results presented in Figure 7 are somewhat crude in that only five
candidate materials have been used, and the natural next step would be to

Figure 6. Finite element model with loads used for maximum stiffness design of the load-
carrying main spar (Lund and Stegmann, 2005).

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 17

expand the design space and allow for a larger variation of fiber angles in
order to obtain a more detailed design. However, Figure 7 still illustrates
very well the potential of the method to solve the combinatorial problem of
proper choice of material, stacking sequence and fiber orientation
simultaneously for a wind turbine blade main spar for maximum
stiffness design. Also, it is clear that stiffness optimized design shown in
Figure 7 corresponds almost exactly to the traditional main spar design
illustrated in Figures 4 and 5, i.e., the flanges monolithic laminates
dominated by monolithic 08 layers (UD), and the webs are of sandwich
type lay-up, with 458 face sheets with a layer of soft/compliant core
material in between.

Layer 1 Layer 2

Layer 3 Layer 4

Layer 5 Layer 6

Layer 7 Layer 8
Figure 7. Optimized material directions for the GFRP material in the 16 layers using 77
patches. There are four DMO variables (08, 458 and 908) for the GFRP material, and a void
indicates that the soft material has been chosen (Lund and Stegmann, 2005).

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18 O. T. THOMSEN

Thus, the classical monolithic main spar design concept can be regarded
as ‘optimal’ (or at least a very good choice) in regard to maximum stiffness
under flapwise bending loading. Returning to the question posed, i.e., if it
could be advantageous to use sandwich structures to a larger extent for wind
turbine blades than currently practiced, the answer is negative with respect
to the main spar considering maximum stiffness design under flapwise
bending loading.

Optimized Blade Design Concept based on Nonlinear Analysis

A recent study by Berggreen et al. (2006) also considers flapwise loading

of a main spar for a wind turbine blade of ‘classic’ layout as depicted in
Figures 3 and 4. The aim of the study is to investigate the potential
advantages of applying sandwich construction as opposed to traditional
monolithic composites in the flanges of the load-carrying spar in a very large
future wind turbine with a rotor diameter of 180 m. The study addresses
most of the criteria quoted previously (not just global stiffness), and the
proposed design change is shown in Figure 8.
In the study, a parametric FE model is used to analyze two basic designs
with monolithic composite and sandwich flanges, respectively. The analyses
show that buckling of the spar flange loaded in compression is by far the
governing criterion for the monolithic design, which is in good agreement
with the findings reported in Jørgensen et al. (2004), Kühlmeier et al. (2005),
Kühlmeier (2007), Overgaard (2005a, b), Sørensen et al. (2004).
It is further shown that introducing sandwich laminates in the spar flanges
results in a globally more flexible structure making tower clearance the
critical criterion. The reason for this is that the airfoil dimensions are fixed,
which implies that a substantial amount of the stiff composite laminates
(e.g., the sandwich lower face) are moved closer to the airfoil centre (axis of
flapwise bending) thereby reducing the bending rigidity. However,
significant weight reduction and increased buckling capacity is predicted
for the proposed ‘sandwich’ design, which, however, is obtained on the
expense that more of the previously listed design criteria are taken closer to
their respective limits. Moreover, the study shows that proper choice of
sandwich core material is important to prevent face wrinkling of the
compressive loaded.

Figure 8. Design change proposed in Berggreen et al. (2007).

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 19

The study also includes an investigation of the influence of geometric

imperfections. This is conducted by geometric nonlinear FE analyses,
assuming imperfections corresponding to the mode shapes obtained from
linear analysis with maximum geometric imperfection amplitude (max. GIA)
of 10 and 20% of the flange thickness, respectively. The nonlinear analyses
show significant sensitivity to imperfections, and also show that material
failure of the spar web corners become critical when the flanges buckle and
thereby soften. In an overall sense, these results correlate well with the
experimental findings reported from large scale tests in Kühlmeier et al.
(2005), Kühlmeier (2007), Overgaard (2005a b); except that the real
imperfections do not resemble the mode shapes assumed by Berggreen
et al. (2007). Thus, in the experimental tests it was found that the local
‘buckling-like’ mode, which led to failure, closely followed geometric
imperfections introduced during the manufacturing process. Also, it was
found that no mode interactions of mode jumps took place, meaning that the
load deflection followed a primary path until a limit point without
encountering a bifurcation or turning behavior. Thus, the response curves
did not show snap-through or snap-back characteristics. Failure occurred due
the combined effect of interlaminar and compressive normal stresses in the
flange laminate, which led to a progressive delamination and final collapse.
The study of Berggreen et al. (2007) concludes that linear buckling
analysis is insufficient, as the buckling capacity is overestimated and does
not take into account the inevitable presence of imperfections. Since
buckling is sensitive to imperfections, and deflections are not, it is proposed
that the most feasible spar design would include extra buckling capacity,
rather than safety on deflections. In particular, due to larger buckling
capacity, the sandwich design accommodates these demands better than the
single skin design.

CHALLENGES RELATED TO INCREASED

USE OF SANDWICH MATERIALS

The findings reported in the previous section indicate that local buckling
of the main spar flange (or spar cap) on the suction side of a wind turbine
blade is the dominating failure mode. Thus, the use of sandwich rather than
monolithic composite laminates for the flange (or spar cap) loaded in
compression would be advantageous, since a sandwich laminate will provide
additional buckling capacity and/or provide a more lightweight design with
similar buckling capacity.
However, a number of potential problems (challenges) associated with
increased use of composite sandwich laminates can be identified. Some of
these will be discussed briefly in the following.

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20 O. T. THOMSEN

Design Against Fatigue

The potential enhancement of the buckling capacity comes on the expense

of the global stiffness that is reduced (Berggreen et al., 2006). This means that
the strains in the flanges will increase significantly, which may in turn lead to
problems with respect to the fatigue design. This issue needs to be addressed
meticulously through systematic design studies including consideration of all
relevant loads cases including flapwise and edgewise bending under extreme
gust wind, fatigue and impact load conditions. To this end, systematic design
studies based on advanced optimization strategies could be very useful.
In particular, the DMO method proposed by Stegmann and Lund (2005),
Lund and Stegmann (2006), and Lund et al. (2005) could be a powerful tool in
this, since it will allow rational evaluation of different design concepts against
each other based on the available material systems (composite GFRP and
CFRP systems, material orientations and core materials) and the prespeci-
fication of different amounts of monolithic and sandwich laminates
(set through the mass constraint by specifying different amounts of the
total material volume to be ‘soft’ material). Candidate sandwich design
concepts developed through the DMO analysis should then be analyzed
thoroughly under the action of realistic load conditions including fatigue.

Damage Tolerance

Damage tolerance is another very important issue to be addressed.

A prerequisite for replacing the most important primary load-carrying
structural parts of a wind turbine blade, e.g., the flanges of the main spar, with
composite sandwich laminates is that the overall structural reliability is not
compromised in doing so. Wind turbines are generally much less safety-
critical than aircraft or ships, see Herrmann et al (2005) and Hayman (2006).
However, wind turbine blades present a special challenge in that they are
produced in large numbers, similar to aircraft (or larger), but the possibilities
for regular in-service inspection are much more limited or even nonexistent,
because of accessibility problems. The key characteristic of wind turbine
blades in regard to damage tolerance can be listed as (Hayman, 2006):
. generally not safety-critical; losses are economic,
. can readily be taken out of service,
. largely inaccessible after installation; regular in-service inspection
difficult or impossible,
. many defect types, dependent on manufacturer and processes; few
in-service damage types,
. few in-service damage scenarios (bird, hail, lightning),

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 21

. relatively well-defined loading (aerodynamic, gravity),

. mass production, often very large numbers.
Thus, the ideal approach would be safe-life design accounting for the
worst combination of production defects that is likely to go undetected
during production, and the worst in-service damage that is likely to occur
without being noticed.
To implement a safe-life design approach in a systematic way requires the
development of a comprehensive and reliable overview of both in-service
damage events and the defects that may occur in practical production,
including the statistics of their incidence. Ideally, the result of this process is
the definition of maximum allowable defects and damages and their visibility.
This presents a major challenge for the industry since competition
between manufacturers limits the amount of information they are able to
share while differences in production techniques make the production
defects more manufacturer-dependent than in many other industries. With
high production volumes, improvement of all aspects of production control,
including nondestructive inspection capabilities, should be a cost-effective
means of reducing the incidence of such defects and of the uncertainties
associated with them.

NDI Methods

With the information of maximum allowable defects/damages at hand the

issue of detectability becomes important. A major disadvantage of sandwich
structures is that manufacturing defects and damages (especially in deep in the
core and the interfaces) cannot always be detected by common methods. One
sided access only (in some cases) and large area inspection poses further
challenges. A number of NDI technologies are available and under
development that better fit the needs to inspect sandwich panels, where the
most promising nondestructive inspection techniques for composite sandwich
structures are based ultrasound, shearography, and X-ray principles.
Quoting Hayman (2006), major challenges in regard to the detection of
defects and damages in relatively thick sandwich structures include:
. the ability to detect deep defects/damage in thick sandwich structures
remains limited,
. sandwich structures with cores of end-grain balsa are especially difficult
to inspect because the defects are masked by the many joints between core
blocks and by natural features in the core material leading to large local
density variations,
. it is generally not possible to detect far-side defects with one-sided
inspection methods,

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22 O. T. THOMSEN

. at present there is insufficient knowledge about the sensitivity and

reliability of many NDI systems when applied to composites to enable
detectability limits and probabilities of detection to be quantified.
. nondestructive testing standards are not yet well developed for
application on sandwich composites. For some of the newer NDI
techniques they do not exist at all.
A development that is likely to improve the situation for wind turbines is
the widespread use of structural health monitoring of blades using, for
example, fiber optic sensors. These may be used both to detect abnormal
events and to detect changes in dynamic response associated with the
incidence of damage or major growth of a defect.

Innovative Sandwich Material Concepts and Local Effects

Naturally, any approach to introduce composite sandwich materials as a

primary structure depends heavily on the design, architecture and material
selection of the sandwich structure itself. A major issue (disadvantage)
of sandwich materials/structures compared with monolithic composites is
that they are more prone to delamination and failure due to the presence of
large weak interfaces between adjacent materials with very different stiffness
and strength properties.
This means that sandwich materials/structures with homogeneous (e.g.,
foam core, balsa core) or nonhomogeneous (e.g., honeycombs, corrugated
cores, etc.) support cores, see Figure 9, are notoriously sensitive to failure by
interlaminar shear or through the application of concentrated loads, at joints
and points or lines of support, and due to localized effects induced in the
vicinity of geometric and material discontinuities. The reason for this is that

Sandwich core materials

Homogeneous Structured (non-homogeneous) support of the skins

support of the
skins
Punctual Regional Unidirectional Bi-directional
open cells, closed support support support support
cells or no cells
fully open open to both side open to one side only open in
Foam cores thickness direction
Textile/pin cores Cup shaped cores Corrugated cores
Honeycomb cores

Figure 9. Sandwich core materials classified into cores that offer homogeneous and
‘structured’ (nonhomogeneous) support.

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 23

although sandwich structures are well suited for the transfer of overall
bending and shearing loads, localized shearing, and bending effects, as
mentioned above, induce severe through-thickness shear and normal stresses.
These through-thickness stress components can be of significant magnitude,
and may approach or exceed the allowable stresses in the sandwich
constituents as well as in the material interfaces (Zenkert, 1995).
Wind turbine blades include numerous joints (at leading and trailing
edges of the wing shells, between wing shells and main spar, between spar
cap and internal stiffeners/shear webs), see Figures 4 and 5, and in the
vicinity of these, localized effects as described above cause the inducement of
stress concentrations that may significantly affect the static and fatigue
strengths of the sandwich parts (Thomsen et al., 2005;, Bozhevolnaya et al.,
2005); Bozhevolnaya and Thomsen, 2005a, 2005b). Moreover, buckling
phenomena, as discussed in the previous section, also induce severe
interlaminar and through-thickness normal stresses, which in many cases
determine the ultimate load-carrying capability of wind turbine blade
structures (Kühlmeier et al., 2005; Kühlmeier, 2007; Overgaard, 2005a, b).
Thus, composite sandwich material systems with improved/enhanced
damage tolerance as well as innovative crack stopper and load introduction
concepts will be key issues.
A way of improving the damage tolerance as well as the skin/core
interface properties is to develop composite sandwich materials systems with
structural elements in the form of fibers, pins, stitches, or even structural
plate elements extending in the through-thickness direction of the sandwich
laminate, see Figure 9. These ‘z direction’ elements should provide stiff
and strong connections between the face sheets/skins (Figure 9) that also
allow for load redistribution if local damage occurs, and at the same time
the in-plane stiffness and strength properties of the sandwich should not
be compromised.
Various sandwich material systems with such performance characteristics
are being used or are under development at present time. An example of this
can be seen in Figure 10, which shows the so-called X-CorTM sandwich
material system (Albany Engineered Composites, USA, 2005). X-CorTM is
produced by reinforcing lightweight polymer foam (Rohacell BMI foam)
with a truss network of pultruded carbon fiber rods and then laminated
between composite face sheets. During processing the tips of the rods
penetrate both face sheets, and the result is a sandwich element
with improved damage tolerance and a superior skin/core bond. The
truss network carries both shear and compressive loads, and the Rohacell
foam core provides support against local buckling (wrinkling). The
X-CorTM sandwich material system was originally developed for helicopter
fuselages and rotor blade systems, and it is based on a patented

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24 O. T. THOMSEN

Figure 10. Stitched foam core sandwich with CFRP faces, X-CorTM (Albany Engineered
Composites, USA, 2005).

manufacturing process. It is probably not of direct interest for application

for wind turbine blades, but sandwich material systems aimed specifically
for wind turbine blade applications, adapted for the manufacturing
processes used for wind turbine blades, and with similar enhanced
performance features, could be developed.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The use of composite materials for wind turbine blades has been discussed
in this article. Current day wind turbine blades already include substantial
amounts of sandwich materials/structures, but it is likely that even more
sandwich elements may be used future very large blades. Thus, several
studies have shown that the limiting failure mode for wind turbine blades
under extreme gust wind conditions is buckling of the spar flange loaded in
compression. From this it appears that the use of sandwich rather
than monolithic composite laminates for the main spar flanges (or spar
caps), in particular the flange on the suction side of the airfoil, would
be advantageous, since a sandwich design will provide additional
buckling capacity and/or provide a more lightweight design with similar
buckling capacity.
However, an increased use of composite sandwich materials for the most
highly loaded wind turbine blade parts also is associated with a number of
challenges that need to be addressed. These challenges include damage
tolerance, NDI methods and the design of internal joints. Thus, material
systems with improved/enhanced damage tolerance as well as innovative

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Sandwich Materials for Wind Turbine Blades 25

crack stopper and load introduction concepts will be key issues for future
successful applications of sandwich structures for wind turbine blades.

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