Can flax replace E-glass in structural composites? A small wind turbine blade case study
By D. Shah, P. Schubel, M. Clifford. 2013
262 citations recorded by the source corpus.
In directly addressing the question, ‘can flax replace E-glass as a reinforcement for structural composites?’, this manuscript adopts a novel comparative case study approach to investigate the manufacture and mechanical testing of full-scale 3.5-m composite rotor blades (suitable for 11 kW turbines) built from flax/polyester and E-glass/polyester. The resin transfer moulded flax blade is 10% lighter (fibre mass saving of 45%) than the identical construction E-glass blade. Static flap-bending tests, conducted in accordance to certification standards, confirm that like the E-glass blade, the flax blade satisfies the structural integrity requirements under ‘normal operation’ and ‘worst case’ loading. It is consequently claimed that flax is a potential structural replacement to E-glass for similar composite small wind turbine blade applications. The failure root bending moment and corresponding tip displacement of the flax blade are 11.6 kN m and 2300 mm, respectively. The blades exhibit distinctly different load–deflection curves and failure modes. The mean flexural rigidity of the flax and E-glass blades are estimated to be 24.6 kN m2 and 43.4 kN m2, respectively. It is interesting to find that although flax fibres and their composites are generally recognized for their stiffness, a flax blade cannot compete against an E-glass blade in terms of stiffness.
Subfields: Mechanical Engineering, Polymers and Plastics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e940c03bae24da63b7181ac88524261ca97fb78
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In Mechanical Engineering
In Polymers and Plastics
Citations in the corpus
- A review of recent developments in natural fibre composites and their mechanical performance (2016, background): “Recent research showing RTM flax reinforced polyester turbine blades to be a potential replacement for those reinforced with glass fibre obtained recognition by way of the Asia 2013 Innovation Award from the JEC composites group for the world’s first functional flax composite wind turbine blade [145”
- Developing plant fibre composites for structural applications by optimising composite parameters: a critical review (2013, background): “yarns/rovings) in comparison to the raw fibres [51, 75], nonwoven plant fibre reinforcements (~1.”