Innovative Blade Designs for Improved Wind Turbine Efficiency

A cost-effective method of making wide pultruded strips that can conform to the curved shape of wind turbine blade molds without forming resin-rich pockets. The method involves using pultruded strips with longitudinal grooves that can be bent or cracked along the grooves to match the mold curvature. This allows wider pultrusions to be used while still conforming to the blade shape. The grooves provide bending points to facilitate curving the wide strips. The grooved pultrusions are made using a die with protruding features that form the grooves during pultrusion.

A blade made of layered composite material that is better resistant to delamination and detachment failures when exposed to fluid flows, especially fluctuating loads. The blade has skins with overlapping layers that extend from body portions between the skins towards the trailing edge. The internal layers have body portions and skin portions that form the skin. This integral layer arrangement prevents delamination by providing overlapping connections between the skins. The idea is that adjacent layers of the composite material overlap rather than join at the spar, skins, or leading/trailing edges. This keeps the layers connected along the blade instead of having detached sections.

Wind turbine blade attachments to improve aerodynamics and power generation. The attachments are flow-guiding devices like spoilers or Gurney flaps. The devices are attached to the blade surface with flexible housings filled with adhesive. This allows bonding without grinding or complex prep steps. The attachments are also positioned in triangles to distribute loads, curved to accommodate blade bending, and reinforced with ribs for stiffness.

A cost-effective method of manufacturing wind turbine blades with shear webs of varying dimensions without requiring bespoke molds for each design variation. The method involves using a detachable shim inside the mold that supports the shear web flanges during curing. The shim can be easily swapped out between blade production runs to change the shear web dimensions.

Wind turbine blade with a lightweight and flexible design that allows improved power generation efficiency. The blade has an internal support structure and an external skin made of tensioned fabric. The fabric skin is supported along most of the blade length by elongated fabric supporting members that can slide along the blade. The tensioned fabric allows the blade shape to be actively controlled in response to wind conditions, optimizing performance. The fabric is lightweight, strong, tear-resistant, and has low air permeability.

Improved wind turbine blade manufacturing that strengthens glue joints between blade sections and reduces blade weight. The blade assembly uses spacer elements on the glue surfaces that contact when blade parts are joined. The spacers provide a minimum glue thickness for better joint integrity. Injecting glue between the spacers fills the space. The spacers can be integrated into the blade sections or attached.

Wind turbine rotor blade with serrated trailing edge that reduces noise and improves lift compared to prior art serrated trailing edges. The serrations have unequal-length edges, and the bisectors are angled between 70-110 degrees from the trailing edge tangent.

Wind turbine blades with a protective cover that is more resistant against wear in the transition area between the protective cover and the blade surface. The protective cover is made of a polymer material, like polyurethane, and is attached along at least a part of a longitudinal edge of the blade. The cover has a U-shaped cross-section with a thicker central section and thinner peripheral sections. A layer of adhesive and an oblique joint between the cover and blade surface provides a smooth transition.

A wind turbine blade tip assembly that protects the blade from lightning strikes. The assembly has a conductive blade tip that attracts lightning away from the blade and a coupler to connect it to a down conductor. An insulating layer encases the coupler to prevent lightning from striking internal blade components.

A method of making wind turbine blades with integrated load-bearing reinforcing strips addresses the challenges of handling long, heavy pultruded strips. The method involves using a specialized feed apparatus to dispense the coiled pultruded strips into the blade mold. The feed apparatus confines the coil to prevent uncoiling, allowing the strip to be fed into the mold while it uncoils in place. The potential energy is released safely by fixing the coil and feeding from the free end.

Rotor for a wind turbine where the rotor blade has a longitudinal recess and transverse recess that share a common passage. This allows a longitudinal bolt to be inserted through a sleeve in the longitudinal recess and through the transverse recess to connect the blade to the hub. The sleeve helps align the bolt and prevents contact with the blade material.

Manufacturing longer wind turbine blades in a more efficient manner. It involves curing the shell halves of the blades separately in blade molds, then performing post-molding operations like grinding or coating on the cured shells in a nearby post-molding station. After the post-molding, the cured blade shells are bonded together to form the complete blade. The separate molding and post-molding steps allow using smaller molds and facilitates blade customization.

Wind turbine blade with a trailing edge flap to increase lift without significantly increasing drag. The flap has two sections with an angled orientation. The first section extends from the trailing edge with an obtuse angle between its upstream surface and a plane parallel to the blade chord. The second section extends from the first section and together they form a concave profile.

Blade for wind turbines with improved efficiency at low wind speeds using optimized airfoils and ventilation spaces between wing components. The blade has a main airfoil with a head wing obliquely above the leading edge forming a ventilation space between. Additional middle and tail wings can also have ventilation spaces. This configuration allows low velocity air to flow from the head wing to the main airfoil upper surface through the ventilation spaces, reducing drag and improving performance at low speeds.

Method of making a wind turbine blade with a composite laminate structure that combines the benefits of dry fabric and pre-impregnated fabric. The blade layers are arranged in a staggered hybrid configuration where dry plies are interleaved with pre-impregnated (prepreg) plies. This allows the advantages of lower cost dry fabric to be combined with the benefits of easier handling and resin distribution of prepreg. The staggered layering offsets the dry and prepreg ply edges in the blade mold. The hybrid layup can also include reinforcing members and inserts.

A pressure relief system for wind turbine blades to prevent cracking and faults in bulkhead seals. The system involves adding conduits through the blade near the bulkhead that equalize pressure on both sides. This prevents pressure differences from causing cracks and failures in the bulkhead seals. The conduits can have traps or filters to prevent passage of liquids or debris.

Wind turbine blade design to prevent lightning damage to carbon fiber blades. The design provides potential equalization between the lightning protection system and carbon fiber layers. It uses a dissipating element with transverse connectors that penetrate through multiple fiber layers. This dissipates lightning strike energy evenly throughout the blade instead of concentrating it at the interface.

A massive wind turbine with large blades and high solidity ratio to efficiently capture wind energy. The turbine uses a compound blade design with Y-shaped blades that provides lift force to reduce stress on the mast. The blades are mounted on a circular rail rotor that can be scaled to large diameters. The wind turbine has multiple units with hydraulic or pneumatic systems to adjust resistance and synchronize rotation for power generation. A control system manages the orientation and operation of the massive windmill to optimize power output.