Self-healing of glass-epoxy composites applied to wind turbine blades
wind turbine blades, glass fiber-epoxy composites, self-healing, fatigue.
Wind Energy technology is facing a promising future. However, some problems related to maintenance and repair have to be solved. Improvements require knowledge and a substantially intensified experimental verification of the methods used. Investigations into technologies of repair of polymer composite structures have been intensified in the last decades, due to the growing application of lightweight polymer composites in structural applications, as the development of wind energy increases. The objective of this work is to evaluate the use of a self-healing technique in glass fiber – epoxy material for wind turbine blades. Poly (ethylene-co-acid-methacrylic) (EMAA) will be used as self-healing agent for fiber glass-epoxy composite. It is intended that challenges related to manufacture of this self-healing composite using Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) process are overcome. Evaluation of the healing efficiency and the fatigue behavior of this system are expected as contributions of this work.