Evaluation of shear flow in composite wind turbine blades

The present work addresses the evaluation of the shear flow as an extension of the Jourawski’s formula. This idea is developed here for the case of a multi-celled composite thin-walled section. Firstly, the explicit formulation of the shear flow due to shear forces and torsion is derived, noting the simplificative hypothesis adopted. Then, the implemented model is verified by means of a benchmark problem with a known analytical solution. Finally, this model is utilized to evaluate the shear flow on an actual blade configuration, comparing the results obtained with those of a Finite Element model of the same blade, with a similar discretization.