Abstract
In recent years, size of wind turbines has been increasing in order to reduce energy costs. However 3-bladed wind turbines are common as commercial wind turbines at the present time, 2-bladed wind turbines may be a better choice instead of 3-bladed ones with increase of size in the future. It is because of some advantages of 2-bladed ones such as reduction of manufacture cost for blades, reduction of rotor shaft torque by faster rotational speed and simplification of installation and maintenance. At the same time, aerodynamic forces exerted on 2 blades could cause unstable motion or load fluctuation. In this study, fluctuation of load on tower root is calculated for 2-bladed and 3-bladed wind turbines by fluid-structure coupled analysis.
