Multipoint Aerostructural Optimization of Wind Turbine Rotors Using a Coupled Blade‐Resolved Aerostructural Solver
(2026) Wind Energy — Vol. 29, n° 7 (2026)
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- Authors
Martins, Joaquim R. R. A. 
- Abstract
- <jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:p>Physics‐based design optimization workflows thread the needle between computational cost limitations and simulation complexity, often compromising between modeling detail and the range of operating design conditions. Multipoint aerostructural optimization of wind turbine rotors has so far been confined to low‐fidelity analyses or to high‐fidelity studies with simplified structural models, leaving the most complex design trade‐offs unexplored. We close this gap by performing the first tightly coupled gradient‐based multipoint aerostructural rotor optimization using 3D aerodynamic and structural solvers with discrete coupled adjoints. The optimizer simultaneously varies blade planform, airfoil shapes, and structural thickness through more than 270 design variables, minimizing a weighted combination of rotor mass and power across multiple wind speeds. Applied to a modified DTU 10‐MW benchmark under conservative structural and aerodynamic constraints, our multipoint optimization reduces rotor mass by up to 36% and increases power by 12%–15% across the main operating conditions; biasing the objective toward power yields power gains up to 18% and a 17% mass reduction. For a nominal wind distribution, 3‐point rotor designs accounting for low RPM and high thrust conditions capture dominant trade‐offs and outperform single‐point designs. Adding two off‐design points changes individual‐condition power by less than 3% but leaves the weighted average within 0.5%, and the mass‐power bias has a stronger effect on the final design than the operating‐point weighting itself. Our framework extends naturally to richer load cases and site‐specific wind distributions, providing a basis for high‐fidelity multipoint design earlier in industrial workflows.</jats:p>
- Affiliations
Citations
Mangano, M., Jonsson, E., Liao, Y., Caprace, D.-G., Ning, A., & Martins, J. R. R. A. (2026). Multipoint Aerostructural Optimization of Wind Turbine Rotors Using a Coupled Blade‐Resolved Aerostructural Solver. Wind Energy, 29(7). https://doi.org/10.1002/we.70135 (Original work published 2026)