Wind Turbine Spar Cap Connection Piece for Incompatible Sections
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Solution Overview
Problem
The challenge lies in assembling wind turbine blades composed of sections made from different materials and manufactured using incompatible techniques, particularly in ensuring structural integrity at transitions between these sections, where high-performance tip sections require compatible connections with lower-quality main body portions.
Innovation Solution
A spar cap connection piece is designed to transition between different spar cap configurations, featuring adaptable size and shape, material variations, and a double scarf component for secure bonding, allowing for the connection of incompatible materials and profiles, such as high-quality tip sections to lower-quality main body sections.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If high performance materials and quality production techniques are used to produce tip sections, then structural integrity and aerodynamic performance are improved, but compatibility with other blade sections made by different manufacturers becomes problematic
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a connection piece as an intermediary component between the tip section and the main blade section. This connection piece serves as a mediator that bridges incompatible materials and manufacturing techniques, allowing high-performance tip sections to be connected to third-party blade sections without direct contact between incompatible surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The blade assembly is segmented into distinct components: the main blade section, the connection piece, and the tip section. This segmentation allows each component to be manufactured independently using optimal techniques for that specific section, with the connection piece acting as a standardized interface between differently-manufactured sections.
2Productivity
If blade sections are manufactured separately and assembled in situ, then transportation and manufacturing flexibility are improved, but assembly complexity and precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The connection piece is pre-manufactured with precisely controlled geometry and surface characteristics in a factory environment. This preliminary action ensures that the critical bonding surfaces are prepared with high precision before the actual field assembly, reducing the precision requirements during in situ assembly operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The connection piece exhibits local quality variations, with different surface characteristics and material properties at different locations. The bonding surfaces are specifically engineered with controlled roughness and chemical composition to optimize adhesion, while other portions of the connection piece may have different properties suitable for their specific functions.
3Adaptability or versatility
If spar caps have different cross-sectional shapes in adjacent sections, then design flexibility is improved, but structural continuity and bending strength are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The connection piece incorporates gradual parameter changes in its geometry, transitioning from the cross-sectional shape of one spar cap to another. This gradual transition maintains stress distribution and structural continuity, preventing abrupt changes that would create stress concentrations and compromise bending strength.
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
Enables straightforward and strong connections between disparate sections, maintaining structural integrity and aerodynamic performance by providing a precise and robust joint that accommodates varying materials and profiles, facilitating efficient assembly and extension of wind turbine blades.
Implementation Method 1
The connection piece may have a requirement that the material varies along the length of the connection piece. The material may change in its chemical composition. Alternatively, in the case of a composite, the physical make-up may change.
Implementation Method 2
A spar cap connection piece is designed to transition between different spar cap configurations, featuring adaptable size and shape, material variations, and a double scarf component for secure bonding
Data Source
AI summary
A wind turbine blade comprising first and second adjacent blade sections arranged end to end along the length of the blade. Each section comprises an aerodynamic fairing and a spar. Each spar comprises a shear web extending across the fairing and a pair of spar caps, one at either end of the shear web. Each spar cap in the first section has a different cross-sectional shape and/or material from the respective spar cap in the second section and wherein the spar cap in the first section is joined to the respective spar cap in the second section via a connection piece. Each connection piece is a pre-cured component extending along the length of the blade from a first inclined end configured to connect to a first complimentary inclined end of a spar cap of the first blade section and a second inclined end.