Construction Of Wind Turbine Blades Research Articles

The Use of Wind Turbine Blades to Build Road Noise Barriers as an Example of a Circular Economy Model.

This project's objective was to create a circular economy in the composites sector by examining the possibility of using wind turbine blade composite materials to construct noise-absorbing barriers for roads. The possibility of constructing road noise barrier panels from components obtained from turbine blades was conceptually examined, and the geometry and construction of wind turbine blades were evaluated for their suitability as filler components for panels. The tensile strength parameters of two types of composites made from windmill blades-a solid composite and a sandwich type-were established based on material tests. The strength of the composite elements cut from a windmill propeller was analyzed, and a three-dimensional numerical model was created using the finite element method. The strength values of the composite used to construct the noise barriers were compared with the stresses resulting from loads operating on the road noise barriers, as determined in compliance with current standards. It was discovered that acoustic screens composed of composite materials derived from wind turbine blades may withstand loads associated with wind pressure and vehicle traffic with sufficient resistance. In order to evaluate the environmental benefits resulting from the use of composite material made from wind turbine blades to make noise barriers, this study presents the values of the embodied energy and embodied carbon for several types of road noise barriers using life cycle assessment.

Infusible Thermoplastic Composites for Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing: Fatigue Life of Thermoplastic Laminates under Ambient and Low‐Temperature Conditions

Traditionally, thermoset resins such as polyesters (PE) and epoxies are used as the polymer matrix for construction of wind turbine blades. However, concern about their end‐of‐life treatment garners interest to use thermoplastics for increased recyclability. However, the high viscosity of molten thermoplastics inhibits their use in manufacturing wind turbine blades with injection or compression molding. A recently developed, infusible, reactive thermoplastic resin overcomes this technological barrier. Toward verifying that this recyclable resin is suitable for use in wind turbine blades, a dataset of R = 0.1 and R = 10 fatigue data for glass fiber–reinforced acrylic composites is provided and equal fatigue life to industry standard epoxy and unsaturated PE resin systems is demonstrated. Specifically, R = 0.1 fatigue data for acrylic composites at room temperature and −30 °C for verification of low‐temperature performance are tabulated. To elucidate failure mechanisms, in situ mechanical testing with X‐ray computed tomography demonstrates that damage accumulation occurs by crack propagation along the fiber–matrix interface under cyclic loading. Infrared (IR) thermography predicts failure points in composites specimens with porosity defects introduced from nonideal manufacturing processes. Furthermore, these manufacturing defects are shown to compromise the fatigue life of the acrylic laminates by an order of magnitude.

Carbon footprint and embodied energy of a wind turbine blade—a case study

The main goal of this work is to evaluate the environmental impact of a 63-m blade for wind generators. The embodied energy and the carbon footprint are used as supporting tools for material selection in the initial project stages. Real industrial data regarding the most used materials for wind turbine blade construction are used. Two eco-parameters, embodied energy and carbon footprint, were calculated from each selected material together with values of manufacture, transport, use, and final disposal. The blades must be built to have a mechanical strength high enough to withstand vibrations caused by manufacturing flaws, turbulence, or irregular loading. In this sense, Young’s modulus, yield strength, and density were compared to the environmental footprint data to support the final material choice. This evaluation process of the possible materials to be used in the blade manufacture was carried out in the initial stages of the project. Composite materials such as glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP), bonded together with an adhesive material, are used to build modern wind turbine blades. Those composites comprise a considerable number of different materials that can be mixed to reach adequate performance. Comparisons were made with 46 pre-selected materials, considering the mechanical behavior and environmental impacts. The final selected materials have better properties than the reference material. Finally, two materials with the desired mechanical properties and with a potential lower negative environmental impact than the reference material were selected. Replacing the reference resin—epoxy/E-glass fiber—with the epoxy resin with the lowest environmental impact—epoxy/S-glass fiber—will reduce the total value of the environmental load to 102 GJ of energy and 3.4 t of CO2. As important as the material selection in the early stages of product development is the end of life (EoL) choice. In this case, the glass fiber has an EoL potential of 370 GJ of energy and 460 t of CO2 in the remanufacturing option, against zero for the landfill. This work shows that carefully selected raw materials and EoL alternatives for WTB can significantly reduce the environmental impact of this component.

Meshless analysis of substrate stiffness and its effect on metallic double-L joint strength and stress distributions

Aircraft, automotive, and wind turbine blade construction often require bonding of non-parallel substrates. T-joints are used for such purpose. However, reduced information about their mechanical behaviour is available in the literature, mostly reported with similar substrate thickness. When bonding a thin substrate on a thicker one, the thinner substrate could largely deform before the adhesive layer fails. Therefore, numerical techniques as the meshless methods (MM) are suitable to analyse this joint configuration. In this work, a MM was used to analyse T-joints with metallic substrates. The analyses were elastic-plastic and considered the Exponent Drucker-Prager (EDP), which is appropriate for ductile adhesives. Four substrate thicknesses (1–4 mm), and three different adhesive systems were considered, aiming to investigate the EDP suitability for the analysis of adhesive joints with non-parallel substrates and how substrate thickness and adhesive ductility influence joint strength (Pmax). Thus, Pmax, stress and strains along the bond-line, and plastic hinges in the substrates were evaluated. Regardless of the adhesive system, the increase of substrate thickness (tP2) also increased Pmax. For adhesives with failure strain (ϵf) below 10%, experimental and numerical results have a good agreement, showing that the proposed methodology is suitable to analyse this joint type.

Compression behaviour study for glass fiberglass-reinforced plastics used in the construction of wind turbine blades

Classical materials of whose manufacturing requires high energy consumption have begun to be replaced by composite materials, as a better alternative to energy and environmental problems caused by the production of the classic ones. The design of blades with a high efficiency that are resistant and having deformations within the allowable limits and a mass as small as possible is not a simple problem. Currently, the use of composite materials in the construction of blades is a perfect solution but determining the structure with optimal strength requires finding a compromise between the strength limits of materials and costs. In the assembly of a wind turbine, the critical component is the blade and thus the material for the construction of wind turbine blade (WTB) must have high rigidity, fatigue strength, low weight, and good wear resistance. This paper presents the results obtained at compression on the glass fibre reinforced plastics (GFRP) composite, used in the construction of turbine blades. To increase service life and to investigate defects during operation, compression tests have been performed to determine the mechanical properties of [0°/90°] and [±45°] reinforced specimens in accordance with ASTM D3410.

Some aspects regarding the influence of humidity on the tensile characteristics of GFRP composite material

Composite materials have experienced great development in recent years, replacing traditional materials. Designed as metastructures, their properties recommend them in different fields, from sports materials to those in aeronautic and energy industries. In combinations of metallic layers or composites based on carbon/glass fibers, the properties of these materials allowed both the miniaturization of devices and the construction of large lightweight components. The paper aims to present the results of the tensile evaluation of the glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP), used in the construction of wind turbine blades. The blades are the most critical components of the wind turbines, being exposed to the damage and the defects that appear during operation can lead to the loss of the integrity of the blade structure. In order to increase the lifetime and to study the defects during operation, tensile tests were performed to determine the mechanical properties on a dry specimen, reinforced at [0 ° / 90 °], and the results obtained were compared with two specimens subjected to immersion in water for 14 and 21 days, two other specimens were immersed in seawater (Black Sea) for 14 and 21 days and one specimen was immersed in liquid nitrogen for 4 days.

Mechanical Testing of GFRP Composite Materials Used in Wind Turbine Blades Construction

The paper proposes to present the results of the evaluation of glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) used in the construction of wind turbine blades. In a wind turbine, the blades are the most exposed to damages and the defects which appear are various and are connected with the type of manufacture, simple/complex loading, environmental conditions etc. In order to increase the lifetime span and to analyze the degradation phenomena during the materials functioning, destructive evaluation tests are performed to determine the mechanical property, by testing pure shear on specimens Iosipescu, from GFRP with woven reinforcement at [± 45°] and [0°/90°], with the shear fixture, endowment of Technical University Gh.Asachi Iasi.

Performance analysis of wind turbine blade materials using nanocomposites

Nanoparticle reinforced composites (nanocomposites) are gaining popularity among researchers and industries due to its incredible properties. Nanocomposites have wide a range of applications in variety of domains. Glass fiber reinforced epoxy matrix composites are highly preferred for the construction of wind turbine blades due to its favourable characteristics. This paper mainly investigates the feasibility of SiO2 and Al2O3 based nanocomposites particularly for the application of wind turbine blades. The work presented in this paper deals with the fabrication and detailed analysis of nano SiO2 and Al2O3 dispersed E-glass fiber/ AW 106 epoxy composites. Composites were fabricated with a hand layup process by varying the percentage of nanomaterials. In order to analyze the properties of the materials tensile test, fatigue test, and hardness test were performed. From the test results, nanocomposite with 1% Al2O3 showed relatively good tensile strength and fatigue strength with optimum hardness. Analysis using SEM and EDX were done to study the microstructure of the composites. Further, computational modelling and analysis were done with ANSYS software package to get an insight on the suitability of these composites for wind turbine blade applications under different loading conditions.

Determination of mechanical properties of some glass fiber reinforced plastics suitable to Wind Turbine Blade construction

The control of wind turbine's components is very rigorous, while the tower and gearbox have more possibility for revision and repairing, the rotor blades, once they are deteriorated, the defects can rapidly propagate, producing failure, and the damages can affect large regions around the wind turbine. This paper presents the test results, performed on glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) suitable to construction of wind turbine blades (WTB). The Young modulus, shear modulus, Poisson's ratio, ultimate stress have been determined using tensile and shear tests. Using Dynamical Mechanical Analysis (DMA), the activation energy for transitions that appear in polyester matrix as well as the complex elastic modulus can be determined, function of temperature.

Structural Design and Finite Element Analysis of Composite Wind Turbine Blade

This paper presents structural studies of a medium scale composite wind turbine blade construction made of epoxy glass fiber for a 750kW rated power stall regulated horizontal axis wind turbine system. The complex geometry of the blade with a skin-spar foam sandwich structure was generated by utilizing commercial code ANSYS finite element package. Dimensions of twist, chord and thickness were developed by computer program. NREL S-series airfoils with different chord thickness are used along current blade cross-sections. The current design method uses blade element momentum (BEM) theory to complete satisfactory blade design and can be carried out using a spreadsheet, lift and drag curves for the chosen aerofoil. According to composite laminate theory and finite element method, optimal blade design was obtained. The focus is on the structural static strength of wind turbine blades loaded in flap-wise direction and methods for optimizing the blade cross-section to improve structural reliability. Moreover, the natural frequencies and modal shapes of the rotor blade were calculated for defining dynamic characteristics. Structural analysis was performed by using the finite element method in order to evaluate and confirm the blade to be sound and stable under various load conditions.

Selection of Nepalese Timber for Small Wind Turbine Blade Construction

The paper describes the selection of Nepalese timber for development of small wind turbine blades on the basis of locally based low cost timbers, along with the selection of coatings to protect the timber from weathering. The selection criterion of timber includes timber mechanical properties, weathering effect on coatings, price, growth and availability of the timber. Mechanical properties such as Young's modulus of elasticity, breaking strength, breaking strain and Brinell's hardness of selected Nepalese timbers are presented. The effects of weathering on timbers without coating, and with different coatings, are analysed on the basis of the change in weight of the timber due to the effect of humidity and rainfall over a period of nineteen months. Degradation of different coatings of timber are compared.