Joint sleeve for a rotor blade assembly of a wind turbine

Abstract

A joint sleeve for assembling together a first blade section and a second blade section of a rotor blade assembly is disclosed. The joint sleeve may include an outer surface and an inner surface defining a cavity. The cavity may be configured to receive a joint end of the first blade section and a joint end of the second blade section. The joint sleeve may also include a plurality of openings defined between the outer and inner surfaces. The openings may be configured to receive fasteners for securing the joint ends of the first and second blade sections within the cavity. Additionally, a profile of the outer surface may be configured to generally correspond to an aerodynamic profile of the first and second blade sections such that a substantially continuous aerodynamic profile is defined between the first and second blade sections when the joint ends are inserted within the cavity.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present subject matter relates generally to rotor blades of a wind turbine and, more particularly, to a joint sleeve for joining blade sections of a rotor blade assembly.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Wind power is considered one of the cleanest, most environmentally friendly energy sources presently available, and wind turbines have gained increased attention in this regard. A modern wind turbine typically includes a tower, generator, gearbox, nacelle, and one or more rotor blades. The rotor blades capture kinetic energy from wind using known foil principles and transmit the kinetic energy through rotational energy to turn a shaft coupling the rotor blades to a gearbox, or if a gearbox is not used, directly to the generator. The generator then converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy that may be deployed to a utility grid.[0003]To ensure that wind power remains a viable energy source, efforts have been made to improve the overall perform...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

Problems solved by technology

However, known attachment devices are typically complex and are manually intensive to install.

Additionally, such attachment devices make it difficult to accurately align the blade tip with the remainder of the rotor blade.

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