Mobile Water Jet Cutting for Wind Turbine Rotor Blade Dismantling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for dismantling large fiber composite materials, such as wind turbine rotor blades, face challenges including high maintenance costs, wear on cutting tools, and environmental concerns due to explosive methods, as well as difficulties in handling and transporting large, bulky items.
Innovation Solution
A mobile cutting unit equipped with a handling robot and sensor device for jet cutting, utilizing a high-pressure cutting medium like water or abrasive materials, which minimizes tool wear and allows for precise cutting of large-format materials into manageable fragments without environmental contamination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If mechanical sawing tools are used to cut fiber composite materials, then cutting can be performed, but tool wear increases and maintenance costs rise
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces mechanical sawing tools with a water jet cutting system that uses high-pressure water (potentially with abrasive additives) to erode and cut through fiber composite materials. This substitution eliminates direct mechanical contact between the cutting tool and workpiece, thereby preventing tool wear while maintaining effective cutting capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention employs a water jet system utilizing high-pressure hydraulic flow to perform cutting operations. The water jet, generated by high-pressure pumps, delivers kinetic energy to erode the composite material surfaces, enabling cutting without mechanical tool contact and associated wear problems.
2Productivity
If explosive charges are used to dismantle rotor blades, then material can be separated, but environmental contamination and safety risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces explosive demolition with a controlled water jet cutting process. The high-pressure water jet systematically erodes and cuts the composite material along desired paths, achieving dismantling without the uncontrolled fragmentation, noise, and environmental contamination associated with explosive charges.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention converts the potentially harmful high-pressure water jet, which could cause damage, into a controlled cutting tool. By directing the water jet through precision nozzles and controlling its trajectory, the harmful erosive force is transformed into a precise dismantling method that avoids environmental contamination while maintaining productivity.
3Ease of manufacture
If large-format bulky goods are transported to processing plants, then centralized processing can be performed, but transport costs and logistics complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the processing system from a static centralized plant to a dynamic mobile unit. The water jet cutting system is mounted on a mobile platform that can be positioned directly at the wind turbine site, enabling on-site processing and eliminating the need to transport bulky rotor blade sections over long distances to centralized facilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile water jet cutting unit serves multiple functions: it can process various types of fiber composite materials (rotor blades, nacelles, etc.), operate at different locations (multiple wind turbine sites), and perform both cutting and dismantling operations. This multi-functionality replaces the need for fixed, specialized processing plants.
4Loss of time
If mobile cutting units are deployed on-site, then transport distances are reduced, but assembly and disassembly effort increases
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile cutting unit is divided into modular functional segments: high-pressure pump system, water storage tanks, control systems, cutting nozzle assemblies, and support structures. These modular components can be independently assembled and disassembled, significantly reducing the effort and time required for deployment and relocation compared to a monolithic fixed plant.
Solution Approach 2:
The system is designed with dynamic, movable components including telescopic booms, articulated arms, and mobile platforms with wheels or tracks. These dynamic elements allow the cutting unit to be easily positioned, adjusted, and relocated on-site without requiring complex assembly procedures, thus reducing the penalty associated with mobility.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enables efficient on-site cutting of large-format materials into smaller, transportable pieces with reduced maintenance and environmental impact, using a jet cutting process that avoids wear on tools and ensures safe, controlled fragmentation.
Implementation Method 1
The device for carrying out the jet cutting process is designed to generate a material flow consisting of, or at least comprising, a cutting medium. The material flow has the smallest possible cross-sectional area and the highest possible flow velocity, so that the material flow impacting the large-format bulky material is capable of cutting it by means of abrasive, localized material removal.
Data Source
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AI summary
An arrangement for distributing bulky goods containing large-format composite fibre material components, in particular in the form of rotor blades for wind turbines having a distributor unit to which the large-format bulky goods can be fed via a feed device is described. The invention is distinguished in that the distributor unit comprises a handling robot and a sensor device, with the result that the handling robot is combined with a device for carrying out a jet-cutting process having a jet-cutting nozzle arrangement which discharges a cutting medium and which can be positioned within a working space which is accessible by virtue of the robot kinematics of the handling robot and which can be sensed by the sensor device in order to generate locally resolved sensor signals, in that a control unit is provided which has a data connection to the sensor device and controls the handling robot on the basis of the locally resolved sensor signals, and in that at least the distributor unit and the control unit are embodied in respect of size, weight and arrangement in such a way that the distributor unit and the control unit can be transported on a roadworthy mobile platform.