Recycling of fiberglass wind turbine blades into reinforced filaments for use in Additive Manufacturing. (15th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rahimizadeh, Amirmohammad; Kalman, Jordan; Fayazbakhsh, Kazem; Lessard, Larry
• Is Part Of: Composites. Number 175(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-10-15
• Subjects: A. Wind energy industry -- E. Mechanical recycling -- E. Fused filament fabrication -- B. Mechanical properties; Composite materials -- Periodicals; Materials science -- Periodicals; Composite materials; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 620.118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2019.107101
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1359-8368

Abstract

Abstract: The wind energy industry is one of the fastest-growing application sectors of composites, where reinforcement fibers are used in the manufacturing of light rotor blades. Considering the limited lifetime of turbine blades, a growing number of wind turbines will start to be decommissioned. Turbine blades are generally landfilled at their end-of-life, which highly impacts the environment. This paper proposes a systematic scheme combining mechanical recycling and 3D printing to recycle the valuable constituents of the scrap blades and reuse them in a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) process with the aim of improving the mechanical performance of 3D printed components. Mechanical grinding integrated with a double sieving mechanism is utilized to recover the reinforcement fibers. Tensile test specimens with 5 wt% fiber content are fabricated from the recycled fibers and plastic pellets and their mechanical properties as well as internal microstructure are investigated. The results demonstrate an improvement of 16% and 10% in the elastic modulus and ultimate strength of the reinforced composite filament as compared to the commercially available pure PLA filament. As well, a Young's modulus of 3.35 GPa was observed for the FFF fabricated samples, which is an 8% increase relative to pure PLA samples.