Lightweight Wind Turbine Construction

A floating platform for offshore wind turbines that has a lower weight and is easier to manufacture and assemble compared to existing floating wind turbine platforms. The platform is a semi-submersible design with a central column, three radial beams, outer columns, and top beams forming a triangular structure around the central column. This triangular frame provides stability and support for the wind turbine tower. The radial beams connect the outer columns to the central column. The semi-submersible design allows the platform to float on water without fixed foundations. It reduces weight compared to conventional steel or concrete floating platforms. The modular triangular frame allows easier assembly and transportation compared to complex shaped floating platforms.

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Method for manufacturing composite blades with internal cavities that prevent resonance and vibration issues. The method involves creating a core with a reinforcing structure occupying only a portion of the core volume. The core has a sealing envelope defining the outer surface. A composite skin is formed around the core. The skin can be made by injecting resin into a fiber preform covering the core, or by laying fiber layers around the core. The core shape, reinforcing structure, and sealing envelope are designed to support the blade while minimizing mass. The core can be made in steps or as a single piece using additive manufacturing. This prevents resin creep into the core and prevents voids. The core with encapsulated reinforcing structure is then wrapped in composite material to make the final blade.

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Reducing weight of wind turbine blades while improving stability at the trailing edge. The blade has a lightweight trailing edge structure that uses internal reinforcements instead of adding weight to the skin. The reinforcements have the same cross-section as the hollow trailing edge region. They are inserted between the upper and lower blade shells during manufacturing. This provides internal support to prevent instability and failure of the thin trailing edge. The reinforcements are combined with a fiber fabric and resin-infused during curing to integrate them into the blade.

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High-strength carbon fiber material for wind turbine blades that provides improved strength-to-weight ratio compared to conventional carbon fiber composites. The carbon fiber material for wind turbine blades includes a specific composition of carbon fiber, resin, rubber powder, nanoparticles, and curing agents. The exact parts by weight of each component are: - Carbon fiber: 50-70 parts - Polyolefin resin: 10 parts - Rubber powder: 20-30 parts - Nanoparticles: 5-10 parts - Triethylenetetramine: 3-5 parts - Epoxy resin: 30-50 parts - Curing agent: 30-50 parts The carbon fiber composite for wind turbine blades also includes a specific sequence of steps to prepare the composite

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A hybrid composite main beam for wind turbine blades that improves stiffness and reduces carbon fiber content compared to pure carbon fiber beams. The hybrid beam uses stacked layers of carbon and glass fiber pultruded plates that are mixed and connected in specific ways. This allows customizable mixing ratios and configurations to optimize stiffness and performance. A first infusion material infiltrates the carbon and glass plates. The hybrid layup provides better performance than monolithic carbon beams while using less expensive glass fiber. The hybrid beam can be prefabricated separately and then inserted into the blade mold for final infusion.

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Wind turbine blade composite material that balances strength, toughness, fatigue resistance, and weather resistance for blades. The composite uses a specific weight ratio of carbon fiber, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fiber, and epoxy resin. The UHMWPE fiber provides toughness and impact resistance while the carbon fiber provides strength. The epoxy resin binds the fibers together. The weight ratio of carbon fiber:UHMWPE fiber:epoxy resin is 570:5-10:100 by parts.

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Composite wind turbine blade design with improved strength and manufacturing efficiency compared to traditional metal blades. The blade has a box girder structure with a main box body, carbon plates, and an outer skin. The box-shaped main body is made of splicing blocks that gradually decrease in size from the ends. This provides strength without complex joints. The carbon plates reinforce the box body. The outer skin wraps the box and plates for a seamless connection. The blade is manufactured by making the box body first, then adding the carbon plates, and finally wrapping the skin around the outer shell. This integrates the skin and shell for fit and strength without separate joining steps.

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A wind turbine blade design with optimized stiffness distribution and simplified manufacturing. The blade has a load-bearing structure made of stacked fiber layers with varying carbon fiber content. The carbon fiber ratio smoothly transitions between regions. This allows tailoring stiffness at different parts of the blade. The manufacturing method involves stacking fiber layers with varying carbon content in the mold, infusing with resin, and curing. This provides controlled carbon fiber distribution without dry spots. The blade can be made without prepreg materials.

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Low-density alloy wind power blade with improved strength-to-weight ratio and cost efficiency for wind turbines. The blade has a low-density core plate sandwiched between high-strength reinforcing layers. An adhesive assembly of soluble nanometer films is used to bond the layers. This allows making wind blades with lower density aluminum alloy cores while maintaining high strength. The low-density core reduces weight compared to carbon fiber blades. The high-strength reinforcement layers protect the core. The nanometer film adhesive improves bonding. This provides blades with lower cost, improved performance, and longer life compared to carbon fiber blades.

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Low-density composite wind turbine blade design that reduces weight and cost compared to carbon fiber blades. The blade uses low-density core boards with densities of 0.8-3 g/cm3 and high tensile strength (>10 MPa) along with low-density reinforcing layers. A nano-hot-melt adhesive layer sandwiched between the core and reinforcement bonds the layers together. The low-density materials and adhesive reduce blade weight while still providing sufficient strength for operation.

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Core material combined composite wind turbine blade design to reduce weight and improve structural strength compared to conventional composite blades. The blade has a shell with a cavity, filled with core materials, main beams, edge beams, inner and outer skins. The core materials are tubes with sealed ends, preventing resin intrusion. This prevents excessive resin weight. The core materials are spliced with ribs perpendicular to the skins, increasing stiffness. The main beams, core, and edge beams attach to the skins. This provides a lightweight, strong blade shape.

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A lightweight, strong, and efficient composite blade for wind turbines that addresses the issues of weight, strength, and power generation efficiency of traditional blades. The blade design uses an aluminum shell with reinforcing layers inside. The reinforcing layers are made of carbon fiber composites and are connected to a central sandwich core. This structure reduces weight compared to traditional blades while maintaining strength. The layered reinforcing layers also improve blade stiffness. The composite materials and layered configuration allow for a smoother blade surface, reduced wind resistance, and improved power generation compared to complex foam sandwich blades.

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Joining wind turbine blade sections together without adhesives reduces weight and improves bonding strength. The blade sections have tapered edges that can overlap. The overlapping tapered edges are joined by overlying laminates of composite material.

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Lightweight wind turbine blade design and manufacturing method to reduce weight and improve efficiency of wind turbines. The blade has a unique configuration with a composite structure made of a skin, beams, trailing edge auxiliary beam, and a core material. The skin is biaxial cloth, the beams have an inner carbon core wrapped in glass fiber, the trailing edge has an auxiliary beam, and the core is lightweight wood without shallow grooves. This optimized blade design provides lightweight, high strength, and reduced load compared to conventional blades. The manufacturing involves using composite materials like carbon fiber and glass fiber for the beams and trailing edge, vacuum infusion for the auxiliary beams, and a lightweight wood core.

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A method for designing wind turbine blades with optimized aerodynamics and structural integrity. The method involves a comprehensive approach that considers the coupling between aerodynamics and structure. It uses a parameterized mathematical model to simultaneously optimize blade shape, aerodynamics, and composite layup. This allows designing blades with light weight and high efficiency by leveraging the aeroelastic interaction. The method involves steps like establishing the design process, clarifying the aerodynamic-structural coupling, analyzing stability, and using approximate models to improve efficiency.

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Lightweight wind turbine blade design that reduces weight and improves efficiency. The blade has a unique main beam structure with an optimized layup of the intermediate connection portion that forms a trapezoidal section. This reduces weight compared to traditional main beams. The blade also uses carbon fiber cloth for lightning protection instead of heavy wiring and hardware. The carbon fiber cloth guides lightning current to a down conductor while providing structural support.

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A gearbox-free wind turbine that reduces the size, weight, and complexity of wind turbine components. The nacelle azimuth drives and pitch drives are implemented using planetary-gearbox-free electric actuator drives to reduce size and weight. The gearbox has a single or two stages using a toothed pin mechanism instead of a conventional planetary gearbox. The toothed pin gearbox provides torque conversion without multiple stages. Instead of a large planetary gearbox, toothed pin gears reduce complexity and size.

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Large-scale generator design that minimizes weight and cost while still maintaining the necessary rotor-stator spacing to prevent contact and failure. The generator uses a stack of annular rotors and stators with spacers between them. The rotors have inner and outer annular portions, with the magnet on the outer portion. The spacers brace the rotors to prevent axial displacement and provide the necessary spacing. The spacers have a smaller diameter section that fits between the rotors and a larger diameter section that the stators fit over. The rotors, spacers, and stators are held together with bolts through the center. This configuration allows using a central cylinder instead of a solid shaft, reducing rotor weight.

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Super large tow carbon fiber made from pre-oxidized and carbonized acrylic fiber for wind power blades that provides higher stiffness and cost effectiveness compared to conventional carbon fiber. The super large tow carbon fiber is made by pre-oxidizing and carbonizing textile-grade acrylic fiber to create a low-cost, ultra-long carbon fiber. This fiber is then used in wind power blade components like main beams to improve stiffness and overall blade performance at a lower cost compared to conventional carbon fiber.

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Multi-segment rotor blade for horizontal-axis wind turbines that allows pitch angle control of each blade segment to optimize performance and reduce loads. The blade is made up of multiple segments that can rotate relative to each other to change the pitch angle. The blade segments are connected by guiding structures and actuating mechanisms that allow variable pitch between segments. This enables independent pitch control of each segment for optimal angle of attack and feathering. The blade design increases efficiency, reduces loads, and allows transportation of larger blades.

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