Cable Reinforced Small Scale Horizontal Axial Wind Turbine

In this paper, a cable reinforcement structure for small scale horizontal axial wind turbines is proposed. Shock-vibration tests were performed on the cable reinforced structure with different parameters of cable installation. The first order frequency of the blade was chosen to represent the stiffness of the blade rotor. According to the results, an optimum location of cable reinforcement exists at around 1/3 length of the wind turbine blade, and the first order frequency of the blade rotor will rise with the tension of the cable in a certain range. Further analysis showed that besides improving the reliability of the wind turbine rotors, the cable reinforcement structure also provides a possibility to use cheaper materials for blade manufacturing and also control the noise level of small scale horizontal axial wind turbines.