Blade efficiency

摘要

A group of industrial, manufacturing and aerospace engineers is leading Iowa State University's drive to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of wind energy. Manufacturing in the wind industry largely is done by hand, according to Frank Peters, an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering. Iowa State's Wind Energy Manufacturing Laboratory aims to find ways to automate the manufacturing. The team, which includes fellow industrial and manufacturing systems engineering professors Matt Frank and John Jackman and aerospace engineering professor Vinay Dayal, hopes to reduce wind energy costs from 8.2 cents per kilowatt hour to 6 cents per kilowatt hour by 2020. New, low-cost manufacturing systems could improve the productivity of turbine blade factories by 35 percent.