Abstract: “Wind turbine blades are mostly made of fibre reinforced plastics. However, in particular for the part connected to the hub steel may be used for large turbines in the future. A 3-dimensional rolling process was developed for such wing profiles, which are rolled to shape and thickness in one step. This paper deals with a practical way to access the load carrying capacity of hot rolled steel parts and to give a simple material model for design purpose. Based on systematic finite element analyses, which are compared to a 3-point bending experiment, the parameters for a bilinear material model are derived. The material model shall be suitable to reproduce the overall behaviour of the steel component so that accurate analyses are possible for structural design.”

Keywords: steel, hot rolled, 3-point bending, experiment, finite element analysis (FEA), bilinear material model