Anna Weatherburn
Anna is a Cohort 3 doctoral researcher with the EPSRC/NERC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy and the Environment, hosted by Durham University
Supervisors:
Dr Stefan Szyniszewski, Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering, Durham University
Dr Stefano Giani, Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Durham University
Dr Anne Reinarz, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, Durham University
The Challenge
The UK Government has set out a target of 50GW of offshore wind energy by 2030. In order to achieve this goal, offshore wind turbines are getting larger. Larger blades can capture more energy per turbine from the wind as the blades can sweep a greater area.
As the turbines get larger and the wind turbine blades get longer, the blades need to be able to withstand greater forces from gravity and other loads. Alongside innovative blade designs, novel materials will be required to enable these new, larger blades to be created.
Currently, these novel materials have focused on carbon and glass fibre 2D woven composite materials. One of the big problems with 2D woven composites is that the layers of woven fabric separate, or delaminate, from each other. There is potential that use of a 3D woven composite material could prevent this delamination by weaving the layers of material together but this novel approach to materials technology is currently under-researched.
The Approach
Materials from nature are often much stronger and tougher than would be expected from their constituent parts. This is due to their complex internal structures. This work takes inspiration from these structures, to create a 3D woven composite material with a nature-inspired design, in order to create a stronger and tougher material design for wind turbine blades. The first stage of the project was to gain an understanding of biological materials and material technologies, to create the initial nature-inspired 3D woven composite design.
The second stage of the project was the manufacture of a proof-of-concept material prototype to ensure that the material was a viable design for manufacturing. Samples of this prototype were then tested to measure its stiffness, strength and impact resistance. The manufacture and testing of the material were completed in collaboration with Ulster University.
The third stage of the project is the development of a computational model of the material. This required the creation of a novel modelling method combining software from the University of Bristol (SimTex) and commercial software (LS-DYNA). The computational model can be used to perform virtual tests on the material to measure its material properties. This means that different designs could be tested without the expensive and time-consuming process of manufacturing each different design.
The fourth stage of the project will be to combine the lessons learnt from the manufacture of the material, the experimental testing results and the computational model, in order to propose an improved material design, optimised specifically for use in wind turbine blades.
The Impact
The design of a novel strong and tough material optimised for wind turbine blades will provide an innovative new material for the offshore wind industry with the aim of enabling the manufacture of larger and tougher wind turbine blades. This work will also act as an initial investigation into a new class of nature-inspired 3D woven composite materials for a wide-range of industry applications.
I have presented this work at a range of national and international conferences, including Wind Energy Science Conference 2023, UK Metamaterials Network International Conference on Mechanical Metamaterials 2023, UK Advanced Computational Mechanics 2024 and most recently at the TexComp-15 conference in Leuven, Belgium. I have also presented my work at the STEM for Britain poster competition, where I discussed my work with Members of Parliament and industry leaders.
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For an informal discussion, call +44 (0) 1482 463331
or contact auracdt@hull.ac.uk
