Polymer composite materials for wind power turbines. Proceedings

Wind energy is developing towards larger power turbines with rotors of diameters approaching 150 meters. The rotor blades are manufactured of polymeric composite materials, which offer moderate stiffness, good fatigue strength and low weight. The very long rotor blades are under large gravitational forces and thus require still improved design and lighter materials, e.g. the use of carbon fibre based composites in combination with the traditional glass fibre composites, wood-based materials, as well as sandwich materials.

New concepts for natural composite materials point to future and sustainable developments. It is of importance for the long time performance of large rotor blades to understand how materials perform e.g. under fatigue and under compressive loading. It is significant how imperfections from processing, as well as damage introduced during service, influence the strength properties of materials and structures.

Therefore, development of improved materials and design criteria, with related design procedures, are important in the ever demanding optimisation of materials and rotor blades for tomorrow's very large wind power turbines. For the practical realization of (large) structures more engineering and technology related topics are of importance, such as quality control, joining and adhesives, as well as repair techniques.

The Risø Symposium and the Proceedings contain 9 key note presentations, and 29 contributed presentations, covering a large selection of the above topics relevant for materials and large rotor blades. The Risø Symposium was organized by the Materials Research Department and the Wind Energy Department of Risø National Laboratory. (au).