| Business | Period | Project Coordinator | Funding Scheme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industry | December 2020 - November 2024 | L'UREDERRA, FUNDACION PARA EL DESARROLLO TECNOLOGICO Y SOCIAL | H2020 |
Wind turbine blade leading-edge erosion is one of the key challenges in the offshore wind industry as it can reduce the annual energy production by 4% to 20% this would equate to a loss in productivity worth between 152 and 760 million € across the whole European offshore wind sector.
In addition to productivity loss due to repair operations, the maintenance is difficult and the cost is extremely high due to several factors, including the logistics of getting men and materials to the job site, but also due to the limited access to the structures due to offshore weather conditions.
Therefore, the next generation of large offshore wind energy generators and tidal power generators needs improvements to solve challenges related to materials, coatings and multi-material architectures to increase operational performance and allow an appreciable reduction of the overall cost.
MAREWIND has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 952960 in order to:
In the framework of MAREWIND, RINA is mainly in charge of the technical validation of results related to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and Social Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA).
Therefore, we are going to assess the environmental impact and benefits of MAREWIND solutions compared to benchmarks and evaluate their sustainability performance evolutions.
Furthermore, we will be responsible of the development of a series of Finite Element Models to evaluate structural performances of the innovative composite wind turbine blade.
In particular, using the most advanced tools of Finite Element software, we will pass from the modeling of the intrinsically non-homogeneous composite material to an equivalent homogeneous material. This homogeneous material will be used in subsequent macro-scale analyses. In these macro-scale models, the mechanical behavior if larger entities such as laminates or the entire blade will be studied.
The results obtained will also be used to compare the performance of the developed materials, in terms of weight and mechanical strength, with respect to the currently used ones. The aim is to define the thickness and lay-up for the recycled caron fibres (RCF) composite able to improve the mechanical behavior/weight ratio respect to a traditional glass fiber reinforced polymer.
The fatigue resistance of the blades will also be specifically analyzed, considering the results of the previous analyses and those obtained from experimental tests. At this stage, we will consider the morphed structure due to presence of cracks or delaminations with respect to the initial configuration.
In conclusion, MAREWIND addresses the main aspects related to materials durability and maintenance in offshore structures which
as a consequence imply failures, misfunctioning, loss of efficiency in energy generation and higher costs.
In particular, MAREWIND will focus on:
