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1. Case Studies of Repurposing FRP Wind Blades for Second Life New Infrastructure

   Bank, L.C ; Gentry, T.R. ; Al-Haddad, T. ; Alshannaq, A. ; Zhang, Z. ; Bermek, M. ; Henao, Y. ; McDonald, A. ; Li, S. ; Poff, A. ; et al ( September 2022 , Current Perspectives and New Directions for Mechanics, Modeling and Design of Structural Systems)

   Zingoni, A. (Ed.)

   This paper presents two case studies of the repurposing projects of decommissioned wind turbine blades in architectural and structural engineering applications conducted under a multinational research project is entitled “Re-Wind” (www.re-wind.info) that was funded by the US-Ireland Tripartite program. The group has worked closely together in the Re-Wind Network over the past five years to conduct research on the topic of repurposing of decommissioned FRP wind turbine blades. Repurposing is defined by the ReWind team as the reverse engineering, redesigning and remanufacturing of a wind blade that has reached the end of its life on a turbine and taken out of service and then reused as a load-bearing structural element in a new structure (e.g., bridge, transmission pole, sound barrier, sea-wall, shelter). Further repurposing examples are provided in a publicly available Re-Wind Design Catalog. The Re-Wind Network was the first group to develop practical methods and design procedures to make these new “second-life” structures. The Network has developed design and construction details for two full-size prototype demonstration structures – a pedestrian bridge constructed in Cork, Ireland in January 2022 and a transmission pole to be constructed at the Smoky Hills Wind Farm in Lincoln and Ellsworth Counties, in Kansas, USA in the late 2022. The paper provides details on the planning, design, analysis, testing and construction of these two demonstration projects. 

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2. BladeBridge - Design and Construction of a Pedestrian Bridge using Decommissioned Wind Turbine Blades

   Zhang, Z. ; Ruane, K. ; Huynh, A. ; McDonald, A. ; Leahy, P. ; Alshannaq, A. ; Gentry, R. ; Nagle, A. ; Bank, L. ( July 2022 , 5th International Conference on Structures and Architecture)

   The purpose of this study was to develop a replicable methodology for testing the capabilities and characteristics of a wind turbine blade in a structural re-use application with the specific goal of creating and demonstrating an efficient and commercially viable wind blade pedestrian bridge design. Wind energy experienced a dramatic increase in popularity following the turn of the century and it is now a common source of renewable energy around the world. However, while wind turbines are able to produce clean energy while in service, turbine blades are designed for a fatigue life of only about 20 years. With the difficulty and costs associated with recycling the composite material blades used on the turbines, wind power companies choose to dispose of decommissioned blades in landfills instead. The Re-Wind BladeBridge project aims to promote a more sustainable life cycle for wind power by demonstrating that decommissioned wind turbine blades have the capability to be repurposed as structural elements in bridges. This paper presents an analysis and characterization of a LM 13.4 wind blade from a Nordex N29 turbine, along with a design for a pedestrian bridge using two LM 13.4 wind blades to create a 5-meter span bridge. Software developed by the Re-Wind team called “BladeMachine” was used to generate the engineering properties of the blade at multiple sections along the blade length. Resin burnout tests and mechanical testing in tension and compression were performed to determine the material and mechanical properties of the composite materials in the blade. Additionally, a four-point edgewise bending test was performed on a 4-meter section of the wind blade to evaluate its load carrying behavior. The results of these tests revealed that the LM 13.4 blades are suitable to be re-utilized as girders for a short-span pedestrian bridge. An overview of the design of the BladeBridge currently under construction in County Cork, Ireland is presented, including details on the architectural and structural design processes. 

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3. Material and Structural Characterization of a Wind Turbine Blade for Use as a Bridge Girder

   https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981221083619  

   Ruane, Kieran ; Zhang, Zoe ; Nagle, Angela ; Huynh, An ; Alshannaq, Ammar ; McDonald, Asha ; Leahy, Paul ; Soutsos, Marios ; McKinley, Jennifer ; Gentry, Russell ; et al ( May 2022 , Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board)

   Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials have been used in a variety of civil and infrastructure applications since the early1980s, including in wind turbine blades. The world is now confronting the problem of how to dispose of decommissioned blades in an environmentally sustainable manner. One proposed solution is to repurpose the blades for use in new structures. One promising repurposing application is in pedestrian and cycle bridges. This paper reports on the characterization of a 13.4-m long FRP wind blade manufactured by LM Windpower (Kolding, Demark) in 1994. Two blades of this type were used as girders for a pedestrian bridge on a greenway (walking and biking trail) in Cork, Ireland. The as-received geometric, material, and structural properties of the 27 year-old blade were obtained for use in the structural design of the bridge. The material tests included physical (volume fraction and laminate architecture) and mechanical (tension and compression) tests at multiple locations. Full-scale flexural testing of a 4-m long section of the blade between 7 and 11 m from the root of the blade was performed to determine the load-deflection behavior, ultimate capacity, strain history, and failure modes when loaded to failure. Key details of the testing and the results are provided. The results of the testing revealed that the FRP material is still in excellent condition and that the blade has the strength and stiffness in flexure to serve as a girder for the bridge constructed.

    

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4. RE-WIND: Architectural Design Studio and the Re-Purposing of Wind Turbine Blades

   Morrow, R. ; Gentry, R. ; Al-Haddad, T. ( September 2018 , SEEDS 2018: Sustainable Ecological Engineering Design for Society)

   This paper discusses the opening moves of an international multidisciplinary research project involving researchers from Ireland, Northern Ireland and the US, aiming to address the global problem of end-of-life disposal of wind turbine blades. The problem is one of enormous scale on several levels: a typical 2.0 MW turbine has three 50m long blades containing around 20 tonnes of fibre reinforced plastic (FRP). It is estimated that by 2050, 39.8 million tonnes of material from the global wind industry will await disposal. Whilst land-fill is the current means of disposal, the nature of the materials used in the composite construction of wind blades (glass and carbon fibres, resins, foams) means it unsustainable. Hence, the project sets out to deploy innovative design and logistical concepts for reusing and recycling these blades. The project begins within an innovative joint design studio, staged between Queen’s University Belfast and the Georgia Institute of Technology, where architecture students will, within the highly-constrained contexts of the blade properties and the potential reuse sites, systematically generate, filter, and prototype a selection of proposals, reusing the decommissioned wind turbine blades in buildings, infrastructure, landscape, and public art. The paper analyzes the potential and challenges of considering this highly constrained and yet multidisciplinary problem within the context of a Masters level Architecture studio. The paper concludes with an analysis of how outcome-driven design problems challenge traditional design studio cultures, acknowledging the need to make processes and ideas more explicit in order to categorise, analyse, rank and refine proposed architectural solutions. 

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5. LARGE-SCALE TESTING OF A GFRP POWER TRANSMISSION POLE PROTOTYPE MADE FROM A DECOMMISSIONED GE37 WIND TURBINE BLADE

   https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8066360  

   Alshannaq, A.A. ; Respert, J.A. ; Henao, Y. ; Bank, L.C. ; Scott, D.W. ; Gentry, T.R. ( January 2023 , Zenodo)

   Millions of tons of GFRP composites are expected to stockpile in the next 20-30 years from decommissioning wind turbine blades, which are made primarily of these materials. Responsible and attractive solutions are currently being studied by several research teams across Europe and the United States. The Re-Wind Network is one of these research teams that focuses on developing strategies and methodologies to transform the decommissioned wind blades into ready-to-use civil infrastructure (e.g., pedestrian bridge girders and power transmission poles). This paper reports on testing of a part of a full-sized power transmission pole prototype, made from a decommissioned GE37 wind turbine blade, and loaded in the gravity direction mimicking expected loads during its “new” lifetime. Full-scale connection testing is summarized and combined with the results of the test on the 5.5 m high full-size section of the prototype to obtain safety factors for various structural components under different expected load cases (these include gravity, wind, and ice loads). Structural Integrity of the various components of the power pole is studied to prove efficacy of the proposed second-life application of the decommissioned wind blade as a power transmission pole. Recommendations to improve the design for the planned future field full-blade prototyping are emphasized.

    

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