Load application method for shell finite element model of wind turbine blade

It is common to dissociate load computation from structural analysis when carrying out a numerical assessment of a wind turbine blade. Loads are usually computed using a multiphysics and multibody beam finite element model of the whole turbine, whereas detailed structural analysis is managed using shell finite element models. This raises the issue of the application of the loads extracted from the beam finite element model at one node for each section and transposed into the shell finite element model. After presenting the methods found in the literature, a new method is proposed. This takes into account the physical consistency of loads: aerodynamic loads are applied as pressure on the blade surface, and inertial loads are applied as body loads. Corrections imposed by pressure and body load computation in order to match loads from the beam finite element model are proposed and a comparison with two other methods is discussed.