Developing Morphing Blades for Aerostructures
Problem statement
Global warming is real. The earth is heating up and we are threatening our very existence. In 1972, the first Earth Summit was held and regulations were placed to help set the world onto the path of using renewable energy. Since then renewable energy has become more and more prevalent within our energy ecosystem. As of today, the United States’ power grid consists of 20% renewable energy. Although 20% is a substantial amount, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Wind energy is one of the most accessible sources of energy throughout the world and has the potential to account for over 30% of the total global electricity generation by the mid 21st century. In order to achieve the full potential of wind energy, improvements must be made to the way wind energy is collected. For our project, we will be targeting the blades of wind turbines in order to improve the efficiency of air blades and therefore reduce the amount of energy lost. Ideally, to accomplish our goal of increasing efficiency we will work towards designing an air blade that can bend and morph up to 10 degrees of inclination or declination. 10 degrees keeps the project feasible to accomplish, while allowing us to easily measure the energy requirements between different designs. To do so, we will be focusing on designing composite cores and skin for wind turbine blades that will be capable of altering their shape and actively improve their efficiency as they are operating through different weather conditions. Another possible solution that we could have explored was altering the geometry of the wind turbine blades. Although this could be done to achieve the same goal, altering the geometry would require a much higher investment of time and would cause us to reconsider not only directional material properties, but also geometric properties. Our goal with increasing efficiency is to improve the power generation of these turbines. With these goals in mind, we can work towards increasing the presence of wind energy in the energy sector and working towards slowing global warming.
Team members
Paige Bodart – leader
Tarek Saber – communicator
Santiago Barquin Montero – accountant
Jason Lewis – admin
Client
Dr. Pavana Prabhakar
UW Madison