Improved Materials for Wind Turbine Blades

Wind turbine component with a layered structure that allows optimizing thickness and material for load distribution. The component has a curved main body made by vacuum forming a stack of layered materials with varying thickness. This enables adjusting the shape to match loads without needing thick sections that negatively impact performance. The stack can have inner layers with different materials, like rigid support and flexible protection. Layers can also have sensing or active functionality. The layered structure allows customizing thickness, material, and properties in different areas for load optimization.

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Wind turbine blades with graphene-containing materials to improve durability, weight, and performance. The blades have graphene-based materials in the blade structure, load-carrying spar, surface coatings, and retrofits. This provides benefits like erosion resistance, radar stealth, impact protection, fire retardation, weight savings, electrical conductivity, and sensor integration. The graphene-enhanced wind turbine blade components improve erosion resistance, durability, weight savings, conductivity, and other properties compared to conventional blades.

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Lightweight, strong composite materials and structures using spider silk fibers and proteins. The composites are made by surrounding spider silk fibers or mats with short or long fibers, polyurethane resin, load-bearing members, and sandwich composites like honeycomb. This provides load-bearing composites with higher strength than the sum of the components. The spider silk enhances strength and durability compared to just synthetic fibers or resins. The composites can be used in vehicles, building components, medical devices, etc.

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Lightweight, strong composite materials made from spider silk proteins and fibers for applications like vehicle bodies, bulletproof panels, and construction. The composites have layers with spider silk fibers or silk protein matrix surrounded by other materials like polyurethane, long fibers, and sandwich composites. The spider silk layers provide strength enhancement beyond the sum of the components due to their physical properties.

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Wind turbine blade design to protect it from erosion in a way that covers only the areas most prone to erosion without wasting material. The anti-erosion layer on the blade is offset toward the pressure side from the leading edge. This allows targeted protection of the areas where erosion is more likely, like the pressure side near the leading edge where rain and debris strike at an angle. The center point of the anti-erosion layer is shifted towards the pressure side from the leading edge along the blade profile. This provides appropriate protection for the areas most susceptible to erosion without covering the whole blade.

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Lightweight mast for vertical axis wind turbines that reduces weight and drag compared to traditional masts. The mast uses foam layers sandwiched between support layers to create a composite structure. The foam layers alternate with the support layers. This allows a durable mast with less material compared to using only support layers. The mast can also have magnetic bearings to further reduce weight and friction. The airfoil blades can also have foam cores encapsulated in denser material to save weight. This reduces the overall weight of the mast and turbine components.

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Manufacturing composite cores with non-traditional geometries that have improved strength and stiffness while reducing cost compared to traditional honeycomb cores. The composite cores have hollow tubular structures arranged in a two-dimensional array. The tubes have curved sides that form valleys and crests on the outer surface. Adjacent tubes contact at the crests and valleys. This allows the tubes to be wrapped around mandrels with similar shapes, then assembled and cured to form the core. The curved tubes provide improved strength and stiffness compared to traditional hexagonal honeycomb. The curved shapes also allow closer packing of the tubes for higher density cores. The method involves winding composite material around mandrels with the curved shapes, then assembling and curing the mandrels into the final core. The mandrels expand during curing to fill the gaps

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A system for manufacturing wind turbine blades with improved strength, weight, and cost efficiency. The system involves using preform layers of multiple rigid strength elements like rods stacked in a web format. The preforms are cut and dispensed from a continuous web for blade component fabrication. The preforms have tapered end zones that allow separation. The rods are collimated fibers in resin for high strength. The preforms are stacked with carrier layers and bonded resin between. The web format allows efficient storage, shipping, and dispensing of preforms compared to rolls. The tapered zones facilitate cutting. This provides blade components like spar caps with higher fiber volume fraction, reduced fiber wash, and lower resin shrinkage.

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Fiber-reinforced composite blank for wind turbine blades that enables high stiffness and strength without adding weight or complexity compared to conventional methods. The blank has a layered structure with a form core sandwiched between a fiber layer. Reinforcing rods are inserted into the form core at angles to reinforce it. This provides shear and bending stiffness without needing connecting elements through the entire thickness. The rods can be angled to optimize force transfer. After curing, the matrix binds the composite layers together. This allows making wind turbine blade sections with custom stiffness and strength for load areas without adding weight or complexity compared to conventional methods.

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A lightweight vertical windmill blade design that reduces weight and improves efficiency compared to traditional metal blades. The blade has a frame structure with cutouts covered by a layer of flexible sheet material like PTFE instead of metal. The sheet material is attached over the cutouts on the exterior or interior surface of the blade. This reduces weight while maintaining blade strength. The flexible sheet also covers the cutouts to improve airflow and reduce drag compared to exposed cutouts.

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Additive manufacturing of wind turbine components using biological materials and organisms to improve structural integrity, longevity, and cost-efficiency. The manufacturing involves 3D printing turbine components like blades, hubs, and nacelles using a multi-material additive process. The components have layered structures with varying concentrations of organic and inorganic materials. The inner layers have facultative anaerobic organisms that can produce enzymes and proteins. This mimics biomimetic scaffolds and matrices found in nature. The outer layers have calcium carbonate, urea, and chitin. The gradients of materials with organisms provide structural conformity and self-healing properties. The multi-material 3D printing allows customized compositions and gradients for optimal performance and durability.

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Passively modifying the airfoil profile of wind turbine blades to improve lift at low angles of attack without active controls. The modification involves deformable elements attached to the blade surface that passively change shape based on local air pressure. This alters the blade thickness and camber in response to wind conditions. The deformable elements can have filler material inside and semi-permeable membranes to guide airflow. The passive deformation modifies the original airfoil profile without adding components or complexity.

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A novel vertical axis wind turbine design that eliminates the need for a tower by using multiple blades attached to high tension cables. The blades are made of whole bamboo poles and the turbine is assembled using a collapsible frame system. The tension in the cables provides rigidity and prevents deformation. This allows the turbine to be built using lighter materials like bamboo instead of heavy tower components. The tensioned cables also allow the turbine to float on water or be installed on the ground without a separate foundation.

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A structure for wind turbine blades and aircraft wings that improves durability and efficiency by encapsulating interior fluid volumes with pressurized fluids different from the external ambient fluid pressure. This reduces stress and cracking compared to conventional blades with unpressurized interiors. The encapsulated volumes are sealed, pressurized, and accessible through valves for retrofitting existing blades. The blades can have winglet-shaped airfoils like modern commercial airliners to further enhance efficiency.

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Wind turbine blade design with a metal strip at the tip to suppress erosion and maintain aerodynamic performance. The metal strip covers the leading edge at the blade tip to prevent erosion from rain and debris. This reduces erosion compared to coatings or tapes that can degrade and fall off. The strip overlaps the blade tip and connects to the internal receptor. It also electrically connects to lightning conductors along the blade to protect the hub.

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Sealing member for jointed wind turbine blades that mitigates performance issues like noise and aerodynamic drag at the blade joints. The sealing member is installed between overlapping outer shells of adjacent blade segments at the joint. It fills the gap between the shells to seal against airflow, reducing noise and improving aerodynamics. The sealing member allows relative movement between the shells to accommodate blade bending and twisting.

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A method to manufacture vertical axis wind turbine blades using a snap-fit assembly of lightweight components filled with high-density foam. The blade is made by joining glueless components like forward and aft spars, ribs, and trailing supports that have snap-together ends with circular dovetails. High-density foam is injected into the assembled blade frame to fill the interior. This allows alignment and proper positioning of the components during assembly. The foam-filled blade provides structural strength without needing a complex molding process.

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A structure for wind turbine blades and other aerodynamic structures like aircraft wings that reduces fatigue and damage due to cyclical loading. The structure involves encapsulating a volume inside the blade with a fluid under pressure different from the external air pressure. This internal pressure counteracts the blade's expansion and contraction during rotation, preventing cracking and delamination at the blade edges. The internal pressure can be controlled through valves to balance with the external pressure during operation.

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Using functionalized graphene in wind turbine blades, towers, and coatings to improve performance and durability. The graphene can be incorporated into the blade structure, load-carrying spar, surface coatings, and retrofitted onto existing blades. Benefits include reduced weight, increased strength, improved erosion resistance, better impact resistance, enhanced conductivity, radar absorption, and thermal management. Functionalized graphene in blades can also provide de-icing functionality. Graphene-containing coatings on towers can enable higher tower heights. The graphene can also be used in wind turbine sensors.

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Reducing aerodynamic and hydrodynamic drag for objects like tires, vehicles, buildings, and wind turbines by mimicking natural textures found in nature. The textures on surfaces like shark skin, jellyfish, bird feathers, and lotus flowers are copied to reduce drag when exposed to fluids like air or water. This involves applying natural surface treatments to objects to reduce drag when they encounter moving fluids. The textures can also improve release of molded objects from molds and self-cleaning of molds.

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