New Technology To Improve Wind Turbines

Owens Corning, manufacturer of glass fiber reinforcements and engineered materials for composite systems, introduced Ultrablade fabric solutions, which should enable wind turbine manufacturers to produce longer and lighter wind turbine blades. The new product will be available from January 2011, and the company claims it can remove about a metric ton of resin and reinforcement on a 2 MW wind turbine.

The new Ultrablade fabrics in epoxy resin offer several improvements for manufacturers:

• 18% spar weight reduction, with length remaining the same
• 6% blade length increase (longer blades, more swept area, more generated power)
• 20% blade stiffness improvement
• 6% blade thickness reduction (more aerodynamic efficiency, more torque)
• 5% blade weight reduction

As the market continues to move to larger-capacity wind turbines needing longer blades, designers can use a combination of several improved properties in different areas of a blade… They can choose to increase blade length for any given weight while keeping the thrust constant and assuring sufficient tower clearance. At lower wind speeds, weight-saving Ultrablade™ fabric solutions can help increase a blade's aerodynamic lift, torque and energy output. The end-result will be higher annual energy production from optimized blade designs using high-performance fabrics.

Chris Skinner, CEO

In order to increase power generating capacities in wind turbines, the properties of wind turbines need to be improved, and their performance optimized. Optimization, and the resulting increase in energy yield, can be achieved in various ways, including improvements in materials.