Chinese and Danish teams collaborate in the development highly strong and reliable composite materials for extra

large off-shore wind turbines

The future of wind power is related with the design of very large turbines (8-10MW) standing in wind farms of several hundred MW, both on- and offshore. For this case, the potential costs of repair or replacement as well as maintenance of damaged wind turbines will be huge. The problem of reliability of wind turbines becomes especially important for large and extra large turbines. The required reliability of wind turbines can be ensured by development and use (from The Guardian) of strong and highly damage resistant advanced materials. In 2011, Danish team led by Senior Researcher Leon MISHNAEVSKY Jr. (Technical University of Denmark) and Chinese team, led by Professor Hongwei ZHOU (China University of Mining and Technology Beijing) joined their efforts to develop a scientific basis for the development of advanced, strong materials for wind blades by optimizing their structures at microlevel. Figure shows Dr. Mishnaevsky, Professor Zhou (left) and Professor Jin (ViceRector of CUMTB) The joint project (total budget about 0.8 Mio EUR, duration 2011-2016) has been funded by Danish Council for Strategic Research (DSF)

Professor Zhou (CUMTB) (right), Dr. Mishnaevsky Jr. (DTU), and Professor Jin (Vice-Rector of CUMTB)

(pr oject title High reliability of large wind turbines via computational micromechanics based enhancement of materials performances). The objectives of this project included a comprehensive materials testing programme (also including in-situ electron microscopy), development of a virtual laboratory for the computational testing of different materials for wind blade applications and exploring different ways of modifications of wind blade materials microstructures (including nanoengineered composites

Schema of the multiscale modelling of CNT reinforced hybrid composites

Dr. Mishnaevsky, Professor Zhou (left) and Professor (Vice Rector of CUMTB)

and hierarchical materials) in numerical experiments. Figure shows a schema of multiscale model of a hybrid unidirectional composite with carbon nanotube (CNT) secondary reinforcement. The blue box below shows the list of main publications obtained in the framework of this project. The yellow box shows some conclusions and ideas directed toward the improvement of the materials for large wind turbines.

In order to discuss the advancements of the materials development for large wind turbines, the International Symposium on Materials for Wind Energy Applications was organized in the framework of this project in Beijing, China, September 17 -19, 2012. 70 specialists participated in the symposium, including the researchers from Denmark, Germany, Canada, Nepal, The Netherlands, UK, USA, as well as from the many Chinese universities, including Beihang, Tsinghua, Dalian, Harbin, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and other.

Professor Zhou: Welcome Speech at International Symposium on Materials for Wind Energy Applications in Beijing, China, September 17-19, 2012.

Contact:
Dr. habil. Leon Mishnaevsky Jr., Senior Scientist Technical University of Denmark, Department of Win d Energy, Ris Campus, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark Email: lemi@dtu.dk https://sites.google.com/site/impgmish/ Professor Zhou Hongwei, School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, P. R. China E-mail: zhw@cumtb.edu.cn

Participants of the International Symposium on Materials for Wind Energy Applications in Beijing, China, September 17-19, 2012.

Some publications:
Microscale damage mechanisms and degradation of fiber reinforced composites for wind energy applications: Results of Danish-Chinese collaborative investigations, J. Composite Materials, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0021998313503876 Compressive damage mechanism of GFPR composites under off-axis loading: Experimental and numerical investigations, Composites Part B: Engineering, Vol. 55, 2013, pp 119-127 Influence of fibers orientation angle on failure mechanism of glass fiber reinforced polymer composites, Scientia Sinica Physica, Mechanica & Astronomica, 2013, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 167176, doi: 10.1360/132011-1237 Fatigue of multiscale composites with secondary nanoplatelet reinforcement: 3D computational analysis, Composites Science Technology, Vol. 91, 2014, pp. 71-81 Hybrid carbon/glass fiber composites: Micromechanical analysis of structure-damage resistance relationship, Computational Materials Science, Vol. 81, 2014, pp. 630-640 Damage evolution in nanoclay-reinforced polymers: a three-dimensional computational study, Composites Science & Technology, 74 (2013) 6777 Fatigue of hybrid carbon/glass composites: 3D Computational modelling Composites Science & Technology, Vol. 94, 2014, pp. 7179 Polymer nanocomposites for wind energy applications: Perspectives and computational modeling. Proc. Int. Conf. Nanomaterials: Application & Properties, Vol. 2, No 4, 04NEA07 (4 pp)(2013) Micromechanical analysis of nanocomposites using 3D voxel based material model, Composites Science & Technology, 72 (2012) 11671177 Micromechanics of hierarchical materials: a brief overview, Reviews on Advanced Materials Science, 30 (2012) 60-72 Modeling of nano-reinforced polymer composites: Microstructure effect on the Youngs modulus, Computational Materials Science, 60 (2012) 1931 Composite materials for wind energy applications: Micromechanical modelling and future directions, Computational Mechanics Vol.50, No. 2, 2012, pp. 195-207 Hierarchical composites: Analysis of damage evolution based on fiber bundle model, Composites Sci & Technol, 71 (2011) 450460 Nanoreinforced polymer composites: 3D FEM modeling with effective interface concept, Composites Scie & Technol, Vol. 71, No. 7, 2011, pp- 980-988

and conclusions:
Glass/carbon fibers hybrid composites demonstrate higher stiffness and lower weight with increasing the carbon content; however, they can show lower strength as compared with usual glass fiber polymer composites. Clustered segregated structures of hybrid composites (with clusters/bundles of fibers of the same type) ensure the highest strength among all hybrid composites. Fatigue lifetime depend on the loading type: composites with the high fraction of carbon show the longest lifetime under tensiletensile loadings, while those with the largest fraction of glass show the maximum lifetime under compression-compression loading. Fiber misalignment drastically reduces the fatigue lifetime of composites (by up to 6065%). Secondary nanoreinforcement can drastically increase the fatigue lifetime of composites. Composites with aligned nanoplatelets in the sizing ensure highest fatigue lifetime
.