Abstract
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and General Electric (GE) are partners within the Additive and Modular Enabled Rotor Blades and Integrated Composites Assembly (AMERICA) project. AMERICA aims to develop advanced manufacturing solutions to reduce labor and cycle time while increasing recyclability of wind turbine blades. The project is funded by the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This paper describes the techno-economic analysis of the novel manufacturing process applied to the tip of the blade of a representative land-based wind turbine. A comparison to a standard manufacturing process is established, highlighting challenges and opportunities. Several uncertainties affect the analysis, but with the current set of assumptions, the tip adopting advanced manufacturing is predicted to lower labor by 21%, cycle time by 39%, and total blade tip costs by 15% while simultaneously increasing production quality and adopting recyclable thermoplastic resin.
Original language | American English |
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Number of pages | 16 |
State | Published - 2022 |
Event | 2023 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum - National Harbor, Maryland Duration: 23 Jan 2023 → 27 Jan 2023 |
Conference
Conference | 2023 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum |
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City | National Harbor, Maryland |
Period | 23/01/23 → 27/01/23 |
Bibliographical note
See NREL/CP-5000-90896 for paper as published in proceedingsNREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-5000-84397
Keywords
- 3D printing
- additive manufacturing
- advanced manufacturing
- automation
- blades
- composites
- recycling
- thermoplastics
- wind energy