Wind Energy in Ohio
It’s not about the wind turbine blade, it’s about what the blade is made of. More specifically, it’s about innovations in blade reinforcements and manufacturing processes that impart more strength, greater flexibility, and lighter weight. An $8 million Research Commercialization Program (RCP) award from Ohio’s Third Frontier Project to The Ohio State University (OSU) for the Center for Multifunctional Polymer Nanomaterials & Devices (CMPND) forged a relationship among several companies and academic institutions in Ohio to advance wind turbine blade technology.
Historically, the core material of choice had been balsa wood or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foam. Rob Banerjee, VP of Business Development at WebCore Technologies, Inc., said that balsa has become a politically unstable commodity that also varies widely among samples.
More than a decade ago, researchers confirmed that composite reinforced core materials could improve the mechanical properties of wind turbine blades. Manufacturers wanted strong, durable alternatives that also needed less resin to bind them. “Demands were made for longer blades that could capture more kinetic energy and cost-effectively convert it to mechanical and, ultimately, electrical energy,” says Ashish Diwanji, Ph.D., VP for Innovations, at Owens Corning. “Such blades would require the glass fiber industry to develop higher modulus glass reinforcement.”
Supported by the RCP, OCV Reinforcements, a division of Owens Corning, developed a new class of high performance, glass fiber reinforcement that was paired with the family of cores. Manufactured by WebCore’s proprietary process, TYCOR® positions glass or carbon fiber reinforcements through-the-thickness of closed cell foam sheets.
Glass reinforcements in polymeric composite materials are now a major breakthrough in optimizing the materials available for fabricating turbine blades. The resulting WindStrand™ reinforcements, launched in 2007, are now meeting industry needs for longer blades and higher MW wind turbines. Similar concepts are being investigated for composite structures for wind turbine towers. This could offer a revolutionary change and advantage over current designs.
At present, RCP funding is helping advance the WindStrand reinforcements by applying nanomaterials. Scientists at OSU have ongoing nanotechnology research to engineer a novel foam core material with higher thermal stability, finer cell size (hence reduced resin absorption), and higher strength at an affordable cost. Additional nanotechnology research focuses on improving fire resistance and thermal and acoustic insulation performance of composite structures.
Participants in this RCP award were Owens Corning, CMPND, which helped qualify the new material, OSU, GE, National Composite Center, WebCore, and the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI).