Research database

Wind power is a crucial pillar of the global renewable energy supply and the most likely path to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. However, with the rapid expansion of the eager wind power sector, there is also a growing concern regarding the waste management of Wind Turbine (WT) blades at their End of Life (EoL) cycle. Right now, these massive composite components end up buried in landfills, incinerated for energy recovery, or burned in cement kilns. None of these options is sustainable in the long range. Furthermore, the lack of efficient solutions to such a challenging economic and ecological problem can also severely affect the perception of wind energy as a viable and genuinely green energy source. Thus GREENER approaches the challenge of achieving engineering tools to enhance the operation lifetime of WT blades. Doing so can drastically minimise the composite blades’ waste management problem, giving our society time to find better ways to deal with WT blades` recycling. GREENER proposes using advanced Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and state-of-art testing techniques to create a database with the typical damage patterns that locally degrade the strength of WT blades and lead to premature component decommissioning. Correlating this information with the SHM signals embedded in the modern WT structures, it will be possible to precisely identify the right time for structural intervention and blade repair. Then, the optimised repair procedure (with maximum efficiency) can be defined using a structural optimisation algorithm tailored for the WT blades` dynamic behaviour and fracture parameters response. Such an engineering tool allows for predictive maintenance actions before the damage reaches high levels of degradation, which would inevitably lead to the compromised structure’s decommission. Therefore, GREENER presents a research contribution that WT manufacturers and wind farm operators could readily use for Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) actions.