STUDY OF APPLICATION OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS FOR HORIZONTAL AXIS WIND TURBINE BLADES

摘要

The most common material used for manufacturing blades for horizontal axis wind turbines is the fiberglass-reinforced polymer (FRP), or just fiberglass. The production aims to combine high performance with reduced cost in material and manufacturing process. While the low specific weight of a blade made of fiberglass can help in starting up, in a farm system under weak winds it may leads to reduced torque situations. Thus a large amount of variation in angular velocity and therefore on the specific velocity of the system could happens. Since the specific velocity is directly related to the coefficient of power, Cp, of a wind rotor, this article presents a study considering composite materials and appropriate geometries, designed to maximize the rotation of a small rotor (with fixed pitch angle) by virtual simulation with finite elements.