Derek Berry, NREL senior wind technology engineer, explained, “Once you produce a blade with a thermoset resin system, you cannot reverse the process. That makes the blade difficult to recycle. With two thermoplastic blade components, you have the ability to bring them together and, through the application of heat and pressure, join them. You cannot do that with thermoset materials.”
Plans include NREL’s continued collaboration with partners IACMI, TPI Composites, Additive Engineering Solutions, Ingersoll Machine Tools, and Vanderbilt University to develop blade core structures more than 100 meters in length with both weight and cost reduced by 10% or more and cycle time reduced by at least 15%.
