

Cracks may grow as the number of stress cycles increases, which can ultimately result in failure of the whole rotor blade. This causes the risk of crack initiation in the adhesive layers which are used to bond the fibre composite parts of the rotor blade. Rotor blades of wind turbines are subject to fatigue loads due to service loads and natural fluctuations in wind speed.

Brede, in Adhesives in Marine Engineering, 2012 4.1 Introduction
