The wind turbine industry will need advanced materials and designs to achieve the DOE goal of 3.0¢/kWh cost of energy at Class 4 sites. Aeroelastically tailored blades constructed of braided carbon and hybrid carbon/glass composite materials offer the potential for significant savings in blade weight and possibly cost while using passive twist-bend coupling to ameliorate peak extreme loads and fatigue. This project will develop and demonstrate the production of a utility-scale twist-bend coupled blade (with the desired fatigue characteristics) that can be cost-effectively manufactured using recently developed manufacturing methods (e.g., resin infusion molding) with braided carbon materials. Phase I will include (1) material design and fatigue testing to identify structurally sound laminate constructions for effecting aeroelastic coupling using carbon and hybrid fiber reinforcements; (2) the identification of technologies for fabricating carbon and hybrid carbon/glass composite structures to effect aeroelastic coupling; and (3) the optimization of the carbon composite rotor blade design to 37-m wind turbine rotor blade (optimizing among the variables aeroelastic tailoring, stiffness, weight and cost reduction, load reduction, and aerodynamic performance) that provides the greatest reduction in cost of energy from wind power.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: A family of designs for carbon composite aeroelastically tailored wind turbine blades, with lengths from 37 m to 60 m, should allow turbines to continue expanding in size while reducing the cost of energy by 8-10%. This should enable a substantial expansion of wind energy markets in both the U.S. and Europe
