Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access

Feasibility study on a fabric-covered wind turbine blade

World Congress and Exhibition on Wind & Renewable Energy

July 28-30, 2016 Berlin, Germany

Jae-Sung Bae

Korea Aerospace University, Korea

Keynote: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl

Abstract :

For a couple of decades wind turbine blades become bigger in size to increase the performance and efficiency but the conventional design and manufacturing process of wind turbine blades have still been used. As the 6 MW WT blades are developed, their mass and manufacturing costs are also increased significantly. The conventional design and manufacturing process might not be used for the 10 MW WT blades in the near future. Therefore, new paradigms of the WT blade design and manufacturing should be developed. The present study introduces a fabric-covered WT blade technology which is composed of composite or metal spar-rib and covering skin of fabrics. The proposed structure of WT blade is similar to the truss-sin structure of the aircraft wing in World War I. In the proposed blade structure, the entire load will be subjected to the spars, ribs and skins keep the shape of the blade cross-section and transfer the loads to the spars. A feasibility study is performed to develop the new technology of a fabric-covered WT blade. A couple of blade cross-sections were designed and their structural properties were calculated by using VABS and these structural properties were compared to those of the reference 5MW WT blade. The numerical results showed that the proposed blade design could reduce the blade mass over 30% although the present design is a preliminary step.

Biography :

Jae-Sung Bae completed his BS degree in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering from Korea Aerospace University in 1996 and MS degree in Aerospace Engineering from KAIST in 1998. He then received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from KAIST in 2002. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Korea Aerospace University in Goyang-City, Korea. He has published more than 30 papers in international journals. His main research interests include aero elasticity, vibration and control, wind energy, and UAVs.

Email: jsbae@kau.ac.kr