Development of CIRCular optimised material solutions for WIND turbine blades and support structures

CIRCWIND will develop and validate innovative technologies for current and future wind turbines (WT), to enhance reliability and lifetime, performance, operability and maintainability, as well as to find cost-efficient pathways towards complete circularity in a context where a growing number of WT are reaching their EoL.

CIRCWIND’s most relevant results are:- A prototype Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) material for blades with improved damage-tolerance and fatigue life, using a new multiscale modelling tool and simulation framework.- A circular low Carbon concrete material for offshore floating WT based on a new geopolymer binder and circular lightweight aggregates (CLWA).- New virtual replica-based constitutive models and simulation tools for the FRP material and geopolymer concrete, coupled with monitoring technologies allowing to simulate and predict failure and lifetime, and enabling future digital twinning for blade and substructure components.- Integrated sustainability analysis addressing social, economic and environmental aspects, as well as improved circularity.CIRCWIND will develop its technologies to TRL5, building prototypes and validating them in relevant environmental conditions.

Representative components of TLP floater and blade have been chosen, made of geopolymer concrete and FRP materials respectively.

These innovations will allow future WT to include circular and cost-efficient materials installed in critical WT components at operating windfarms, ensuring feasibility, sustainability, acceptability and high replicability.

Besides, new simulation tools, virtual replicas, DT to improve O&M costs.CIRCWIND consortium has a good balance of academic and industrial partners, which allows the project’s developments to be well-oriented towards real market needs that in addition to the strong dissemination and exploitation plan proposed will maximise future impacts, clustering with relevant Offshore Wind stakeholders.