The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation – Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project lies in the development of an enterprise that uses as its feedstock large-scale infrastructure waste – demonstrating that a focus on innovation and environmental sustainability can drive profitable business opportunities. The project will build on previously developed intellectual property from NSF-sponsored research to demonstrate value-added products from decommissioned composite material wind turbine blades. These wind turbine blades, coming out of service in the United States, will be converted to electrical power transmission structures and other large-scale civil infrastructure using proprietary software and hardware developed by the research team and covered by two provisional U.S. patents. The commercial enterprise resulting from this PFI grant will accrue value from a two-sided market with revenues coming from the wind farms decommissioning the wind turbine blades, and the clients who receive products created from the wind blades.
The proposed project is enabled by software that creates geometric and structural models of the wind turbine blades from data created from laser scans or photographs of the wind blades. The algorithms create the structural property data required for analysis of the new structures under civil engineering loading conditions, which are quite different from the aerodynamic loading for which the wind blades were originally designed. Additional algorithms developed by the team are used to estimate the residual life of the composite materials. The structures in the wind turbine blades are used to match the capacity of the de-commissioned blades to the new application. The initial target market for the technology is large power transmission poles, typically 70 to 120 feet high, used to transmit electricity from electrical generation plants to the grid. Products developed by the team will adapt the wind blade into an electricity pole by adding foundations, supports for cable-stays, cross-arms, and other electricity carrying interfaces.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
