Simulation-Based Study of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Behaviour under Harsh Climatic Conditions of Mongolia

Abstract

Wind energy is a key part of Mongolia's transition to clean electricity, but the country's harsh climate raises questions about whether wind turbines designed for moderate regions can operate safely in winters that drop below -30°C. This thesis investigates the fatigue behavior of a representative horizontal axis wind turbine blade made of glass-fiber reinforced polymer under such sub-zero conditions, using a chain of established simulation tools rather than physical testing. The reference machine is the GE 1.6-100, the model already installed in the first commercial wind farm of Mongolia in Sergelen. Real wind speed data measured at the GMIT campus weather station were used as the input. The aerodynamic loads were obtained from a Blade Element Momentum solver written in Python, which produced the flapwise and edgewise root bending moments at every wind speed in the dataset. These bending moments were then applied to a finite element model of the blade in ANSYS Mechanical, where a static structural analysis and the built-in fatigue tool predicted the life of the laminate. Three temperature-dependent S-N curves of glass-fiber reinforced polymer extracted from the OPTIMAT BLADES database were used to compare the response at room temperature, at -40°C and at +60°C. A modal analysis combined with a Fast Fourier Transform of the wind speed signal completed the picture by evaluating the resonance risk of the blade. The simulations show that, in dry isothermal conditions, the blade can sustain more than one hundred million cycles at the maximum flapwise bending moment, that fatigue performance is slightly better at -40°C than at room temperature, and that the spectral content of the wind at the natural frequencies of the blade remains below twenty-two percent of the dominant peak. These results form a baseline against which more complete future studies, including ice accretion, freeze-thaw cycles, dust erosion and a realistic internal blade structure, can be compared. The work supports the broader goal of replacing coal-fired electricity in Mongolia with reliable, properly engineered wind power.