Surface coating improves rotor performance

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Excerpt: Bladeskyn, a blade surfacing material for wind turbines, from Blade Dynamics in the U.K. and soon of New Orleans, is said to deliver new levels of coating protection, using fluoropolymers in an innovative film application format. The company says its advantages include 20-year performance, assured q …

American company buys stake in U.K. blade maker

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Excerpt: American Superconductor Corp. says it has acquired a 25% ownership ($8 million) in Blade Dynamics Ltd., a designer and manufacturer of advanced wind turbine blades based on proprietary materials and structural technologies. Founded in the United Kingdom in 2007, Blade Dynamics designs and develops w …

Better blade lets 1.5-MW turbines deliver 5% more power

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Excerpt: LM Wind Power’s LM 42.1 GloBlade 1 will extend the life cycle of the 1.5-MW segment by offering a design that provides annual energy production and requires no mechanical upgrading of the current platform. The blade is a way of meeting expectations for high performing rotors. By using its know-how …

Two sensors per blade makes turbine safer

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Excerpt: The pitch control system is among the most important on a wind turbine, say engineers at German turbine manufacturer Vensys Energy AG. The control measures, monitors, and adjusts the working angle of the rotor blades on a wind turbine, which can change its power output. The control also …

Can an air leak let turbines capture more energy?

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Excerpt: An idea originally developed to increase the lift of slow moving aircraft wings and simplify helicopter rotors may soon improve the efficiency of wind turbine rotors and possibly reduce their manufacture costs. The aerodynamic idea of “circulation control” releases compressed air fro …

Sign the blade: GE sends wind blade on tour

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Excerpt: GE recently kicked off a 28-day multi-state wind blade tour to emphasize the role renewable energy will have on America’s clean energy future. The tour will showcase one of GE’s 131-foot advanced technology wind turbine blades that will serve as a traveling petition signed by the public. The …

Building a better turbine blade

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Excerpt: Craig Collier/President, Collier Research Corp./Hampton Roads, Va./ hypersizer.com A first objective on most any large design project is to get to the lightest weight possible. At NASA Langley Research Center, where I helped develop the code that later became HyperSizer, designs for space …

Can intelligent blades sense the wind and adapt?

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Excerpt: The question is one to be answered by an independent manufacturer of wind turbine blades as it enters a three-year research project supported by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation to develop laser-based wind sensory systems as an integrated part of future wind turbines. The proje …

Tough crane provides a gentle touch for turbine equipment

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Excerpt: The ISL Model gantry crane is a heavy duty model engineered for higher duty cycles due to increased hoisting drum speeds, as well as increased ground speeds. The cranes, from Shuttlelift, Sturgeon Bay, Wisc, have fully traversing hooks, those that move the entire width of the crane for easy l …

Free equipment for manufacturing composite blades

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Excerpt: The manufacturer of large-scale and mobile fabric impregnators is looking for a turbine blade-manufacturing company interested in using, at no obligation, a fabric impregnator engineered to manufacture the blades. The equipment, from Magnum Venus Plastech, Kent, Wash., has been used to make larg …