DYNAMIC AEROELASTIC STABILITY OF VERTICAL-AXIS WIND TURBINES UNDER CONSTANT WIND VELOCITY

The flutter problem associated with the blades of a class of vertical- axis wind turbines called Darrieus is studied in detail. The spinning blade is supposed to be initially curved in a particular shape charact erized by a state of pure tension at the blade cross section. From thi s equilibrium position a three-dimensional linear perturbation pattern is superimposed to determine the dynamic aeroelastic stability of the blade in the presence of free wind speed by means of the Floquet-Lyap unov theory for periodic systems.