The EUR 2.2 billion London Array offshore wind farm will start generating power in time for the Olympics and will ultimately be the world's largest offshore wind farm with over 300 turbines. Blades represent around 20% of the cost of a given turbine. Increasingly, blades use high-performance glass fibre. Nevertheless some suppliers make use of carbon fibre to help reduce blade weight. Whilst most blades are now made with epoxy, the Danish independent blade maker LM Glasfiber is committed to polyester resin for its lower cost and has taken the technology well beyond what used to be considered achievable. Blade shells are often made using dry fibre and vacuum assisted resin infusion, cured in-mould with an assembled mass that could be in excess of 30 tonnes for the largest offshore blades. One focus will be speeding up and reducing the cost of large blades through advances in materials and automated tape laying - techniques expected to be transferable back to aerospace. Components include polyester/glass fibre nacelle covers (providing weatherproofing of the turbine machinery); or spinners (the aerodynamic covers for the blade hub); or shear webs. The major technical challenges for composites engineers in this field are based around making structures bigger than boats at a cost and speed of product turnaround closer to automotive, and at quality levels approaching that of aerospace for reliability. The cost of manufacture per kilogram of finished composite is around 10 times higher in the aerospace sector compared to wind. In terms of blade design, optimisation of blade aerodynamics, structural dynamics, mass, strength and cost is a complex exercise reaching to the heart of new wind turbine development.


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    Title :

    Offshore wind opportunities for UK composites


    Additional title:

    Die Marktaussichten für britische Verbundwerkstoffe für Off-Shore-Windturbinen


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Reinforced Plastics ; 54 , 1 ; 26-30


    Publication date :

    2010


    Size :

    5 Seiten, 2 Bilder, 9 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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