New structural materials for wind turbine blades

Although the US has made great strides recently in converting to wind energy, currently it lags behind Europe and has about 10 GW wind power capacity installed. The goal is to produce 20% of electricity from wind by 2030. An instrumental element of the technology needed to transform this energy is t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Power Engineering 2007-01, Vol.111 (1), p.8
Main Author: Peters, Luc
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Aims and objectives
Air-turbines
Carbon
Conversion
Design
Design and construction
Energy industry
Fiberglass
Installations
Manufacturers
Manufacturing
Materials
Offshore
Product enhancement
Turbine industry
Turbines
Wind power
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Summary:Although the US has made great strides recently in converting to wind energy, currently it lags behind Europe and has about 10 GW wind power capacity installed. The goal is to produce 20% of electricity from wind by 2030. An instrumental element of the technology needed to transform this energy is the blade. The challenge is that the weight and cost of the blades are increasing quickly with size. The rule-of-thumb is that the weight of the blade increases by the cube of the length. Owens Corning's WindStrand product enables blade manufacturers to push the glass fiber design further without borrowing more expensive technologies or materials such as carbon fibers.
ISSN:0032-5961