Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POWDERBLADE (Commercialisation of Advanced Composite Material Technology: Carbon-Glass Hybrid in PowderEpoxy for Large (60-100m) Wind Turbine Blades)

Teaser

Mastering the design, research and development of new and improved materials has been identified as key to achieving the goals of European Innovation Policy, in line with the EUROPE 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Advanced materials represent “an...

Summary

Mastering the design, research and development of new and improved materials has been identified as key to achieving the goals of European Innovation Policy, in line with the EUROPE 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Advanced materials represent “an invisible revolution” introducing new functionalities and improved properties, adding value to existing products and processes and ultimately enabling commercial and industrial success through sustainable systemic changes. Advanced materials have been identified as a Key Enabling Technology (KET) an area of key industrial competence determining Europe’s global competitiveness. The PowderBlade Project will deliver to market an advanced new materials technology with significant market disruptive potential. The renewables energy market is the initial market targeted in this project for commercialisation. The POWDERBLADE materials technology responds to the conflicting demands of the renewable energy sector for longer, lighter, more efficient blades but at a lower cost.

The objectives of PowderBlade, as described in Section 1.1 of the DoA, above are outlined below:

Objective 1: To implement a commercialisation strategy leading to increased market awareness of the benefits of the new materials technology, successful demonstration of the new technology in a commercial setting, development of a sales order pipeline and achievement of the first commercial contracts by the end of the project

Objective 2: To achieve 20% cost reduction by maximising the allowable strain and strength of the carbon fibre/glass fibre hybrid materials from powder epoxy – this can be achieved by better, through-thickness infusion and better fibre alignment than standard resin infusion

Objective 3: To demonstrate a potential reduced cycle time of less than 24 hours for very large blades (c. 100m) by using powder epoxy and hybrid carbon/glass construction of the blade, thus achieving cost optimisation and supporting successful commercialisation of the new technology.

Work performed

A detailed business plan and commercialisation strategy has been prepared as part of WP2. In addition, a market review has been undertaken to understand the key players in the market and identify recent technology trends. PowderBlade is on track to deliver the first commercial contracts by Month 36.
An End-User Future Innovation Panel has been set up and a meeting has been held with subject experts to ensure that the project is aligned to stakeholder needs. A communication and dissemination plan has been written and is being implemented to ensure that the benefits of the technology are communicated successfully to all stakeholders. In addition, a project website has been created (www.powderblade.com) and research results from PowderBlade have been reported in leading academic publications.

Extensive work has been carried out in Work Package 3 by Eire and UEDIN to characterise glass-fibre and carbon-fibre powder epoxy materials. The results confirm that the powder epoxy materials result in excellent wet-out, improved fibre-alignment and higher fibre-volume (60%) than competing manufacturing processes. Testing at coupon level has shown that these improvements result in better mechanical performance. Design work, performed by Suzlon in Work Package 4 shows how improved mechanical performance translates into reduced material usage and cost savings. Work is ongoing to scale-up the powder-epoxy technology to deliver these savings at commercial scale.

A full-scale mould for a wind-blade root-section was fabricated and used to manufacture two Two full-scale blade roots from glass fibre and powder epoxy. In addition, two large carbon fibre spar caps were manufactured. Problems of kinking in the first spar cap were resolved through an improvement of the manufacturing process and no defects were present in the second demonstrator.

The total time to produce a full-scale part, based on the current processing cycle-time, is eight hours. This is a considerable improvement over current techniques that have a cycle-time of 24 hours.

Final results

PowderBlade will contribute to the expected impact of the FTI work program as follows. The project is on track to expedite the market take up of an innovative materials technology for the production of larger, lower cost blades in the wind energy sector. POWDERBLADE objectives and impact are directly aligned with the Horizon 2020 strategy on Key Enabling Technologies (KET) – Advanced Materials development, as well as the Energy Societal Challenge, which is designed to support transition to a reliable, sustainable and competitive energy system.
Both Eire and Suzlon are ideally placed to push this technology into the market as quickly as possible and commercial rather than technical activities are driving the project from the outset to ensure the innovation reaches market within 3 years of project start. The project has already led to recruitments of new staff within the consortium.
The work program aims for enhanced competitiveness and growth of business partners in the consortium, measured in terms of turnover and job creation. EireComposites has grown its turnover and increased its profitability and has hired additional staff to work on wind blade manufacturing tasks that are beyond the R&D scope of the project.
The project is on track to reduce wind turbine cost and increase productivity from more widespread market deployment of larger blades and faster cycle times during manufacture. The reduction in costs and increase in productivity for the wind energy industry will lead to a reduction in the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) for the European citizen who will be the ultimate beneficiary of this innovation.
The project has already resulted in full scale demonstrators for carbon fibre spars and blade roots.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.powderblade.com.