SEP: Collaborative: Achieving a Sustainable Energy Pathway for Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing

NSF可持续能源途径（SEP）项目隶属于NSF可持续发展科学、工程和教育（SEES）倡议，将支持马萨诸塞州大学洛厄尔分校的Christopher Niezrecki教授及其同事和威奇托州立大学的Janet Twomey教授及其同事的研究项目。这项高度跨学科研究的目标是为下一代风力涡轮机叶片制备新型生物衍生材料。这些叶片的设计将具有机械性能、经济可行性和环境生命周期，以实现可持续的风能途径。过去对生物基聚合物的研究主要集中在热塑性塑料上，这些热塑性塑料不具备抗蠕变和其他重要结构应用所必需的性能。该项目将重点关注热固性环氧树脂，它与植物油（一种一致的、现成的原料）只有一个反应步骤，从而最大限度地减少能源使用和成本。此外，通过添加合适的催化剂来了解复合材料的分子级热可再加工性，这项工作将实现新的寿命终止范例。将建造具有与公用事业规模风力涡轮机叶片相当的机械和动态特性的缩放测试结构并对其性能进行评估。利用这些结果，新材料将能够在没有全面测试的情况下快速评估。环境生命周期影响分析将强调在生物材料设计和叶片报废选择中提高可持续性的领域。经济评估、生命周期成本和毒性使用分析将提供生物衍生替代传统石油基热固性材料的比较经济评估，以及转向生物基风力涡轮机制造对创造就业机会、教育和技能要求的影响。预计到2030年，美国的风力涡轮机将增长到17万台，风能是一种可再生资源，可满足美国20%的能源需求。从系统的角度来看，这种增长导致美国每年需要处理超过34,000个叶片（每个叶片长62米，重18吨），大约是全球的五倍。目前，几乎所有这些叶片都是由含有大量石油基环氧树脂的玻璃纤维复合材料制成的，在使用寿命结束时，它们很难回收利用。废叶片要么被填埋，燃烧以提取热量用于热电联产，要么被切割并在建筑中用作填料。该项目将确定如何有效地用可修复的生物基材料取代现有的石油基环氧树脂，以便在使用寿命结束时对其进行修复和/或重复使用。同时，还将研究新型叶片对经济、风力产业、环境和社会的影响。研究生和本科生都将接触到对工业重要的技术和非技术问题，并将通过演示来激发妇女和K-12学生对科学和工程的兴趣，从而开展强有力的推广工作。将组织风能研究研讨会，为全国行业参与者、科学家和工程师提供服务。该项目将开发一种革命性的方法来制造复合材料，特别是风力涡轮机叶片。这项工作将使复合材料制造更具可持续性，减少对石油基树脂的依赖，同时实现有效的复合材料修复和回收。这项研究不仅会影响风能行业，还会影响许多其他复合材料使用领域。

The NSF Sustainable Energy pathways (SEP) Program, under the umbrella of the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative, will support the research program of Prof. Christopher Niezrecki and co-workers at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Prof. Janet Twomey and co-workers at Wichita State University. The objective of this highly multidisciplinary study is the preparation of new forms of bio-derived materials for next generation wind turbine blades. These blades will be designed with the mechanical performance, economic viability, and environmental life cycle to enable sustainable wind energy pathways. Past research on biobased polymers has focused on thermoplastics that do not have the creep resistance and other properties necessary for significant structural applications. This project will focus on thermoset epoxies that are only a single reaction step from vegetable oil (a consistent, readily available feedstock), thus minimizing energy use and cost. Additionally, by developing an understanding of molecular-level thermal reworkability in composites through the inclusion of an appropriate catalyst, this work will enable a new end-of-life paradigm. Scaled test structures with mechanical and dynamic features comparable to utility-scale wind turbine blades will be constructed and their performance evaluated. Using these results new materials will be able to be quickly assessed without full scale tests. An environmental life cycle impact analysis will highlight areas for improved sustainability in the design of the biomaterials and end-of-life options for blades. An economic evaluation along with life cycle cost and toxic use analyses will provide a comparative economic evaluation of bio-derived alternatives to traditional petroleum-based thermosets along with the impact of converting to bio-based wind turbine manufacturing on job creation, education, and skills requirements.With an expectation of growth in the U.S. to 170,000 turbines in 2030, wind energy represents a renewable resource to address 20% of the U.S. energy demand. From a systems point of view, this growth creates a need to dispose of well over 34,000 blades/year (each as large as 62 m long and weighing 18 tons) in the U.S. and approximately five times as many globally. Presently, nearly all of these blades are manufactured from glass fiber composites containing large amounts of petroleum-based epoxy resins and at their end of life they are very difficult to recycle. Spent blades are either land-filled, burned to extract heat for co-generation of electricity, or cut up and used as filler in construction. This project will determine how to effectively replace existing petroleum-based epoxy resins with bio-based materials that are reworkable so that they can be repaired and/or their materials can be reused at the end-of-life. Concurrently the impacts of the new blades on the economy, wind industry, environment, and society will be studied. Both graduate and undergraduate students will be exposed to technical and nontechnical problems important to industry, and a strong outreach effort will be implemented using demonstrations to motivate the interest of women and K-12 students in science and engineering. Wind Energy Research Workshops will be organized to serve a national audience of industry participants, scientists, and engineers.This project will develop a transformative approach to the manufacturing of composites in general and wind turbine blades in particular. This work will lead to composite manufacturing that is more sustainable and less reliant on petroleum-based resins while enabling effective composite repair and recycling. The research will impact not only the wind industry, but many other areas of composite usage.