Materials for Wind Energy – course

During this course, you will get an introduction to the materials used in wind turbines and the loads they are subject to.

You will learn about structures and properties used for wind energy and you will learn about the requirements in a wind turbine.

The course places special emphasis on composites and metals.

Focusing on composites, you will work with tailoring, predicting, and measuring the mechanical properties of non-crimp fabric composites.

Focusing on metals, you will learn about the properties of the most common steel types and the most common failure modes.

Furthermore, you will learn how to design materials, tests and use measured properties to design selected sub-components for a wind turbine. You will furthermore learn to predict the materials lifetime based on the load history.

Learning objectives

After completing the course, you will be able to:

• List, classify and explain the main requirements of the structural materials used in a wind turbine.
• Calculate simple load cases for selected sub-components.
• Describe the configuration of typical composite materials for wind turbines and their manufacturing process.
• Predict stiffness and strength of unidirectional composites.
• Describe a testing strategy for measurements of the governing mechanical properties of composites.
• Classify the different types of failure modes in metals and describe ways to prevent them.
• Classify different forms of corrosion in metals and describe ways to prevent them.
• Relate heat treatment and microstructure of steel.
• Describe the concept behind damage-tolerant materials.
• Predict the materials lifetime for dynamically loaded structures.
• Dimension the sub-components in a wind turbine based on materials properties.