Bayer MaterialScience has developed Baydur, a new polyurethane system, which helps in designing stronger wind turbine blades. Currently, wind turbine blades are manufactured in larger sizes due to increased demand for clean or renewable energy.
However, gravity-induced loads on turbine blades produce very high dynamic stress and this issue has increased the market demand for an efficient material that minimizes blade mass and retains strength of the blades. This market demand can be satisfied by light-weight composites with enhanced stiffness and fatigue resistance characteristics.
Bayer’s new class of polyurethane systems enables the production of polyurethane composites materials that can be used to produce large components by vacuum infusion. The Baydur system has long-gelling and low-viscosity properties and it offers a number of benefits, including use of sustainable raw materials, fatigue crack growth, interlaminar fracture toughness, high tensile fatigue, faster infusion time and ultra-low VOCs. A two-part DOE grant has supported the development of Bayer’s polyurethane system.
Dr. Usama Younes, principal scientist at Bayer, has delivered a presentation on the development of the new polyurethane system at Composites 2012 event. The presentation paper is titled as "New Generation Polyurethane-based Fiber-reinforced Composites for Vacuum Infusion and the Effect of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes on their Performance." The scientist had described tests, which compared the properties of a polyurethane resin system with traditional epoxy and vinyl ester resin systems. The tests include dual vacuum-infusion experiments, which compare the resins’ flow rates. In addition, the impact of multi-walled carbon nanotubes on the properties of fiber-reinforced composites has also been evaluated. The study results have revealed that with the use of small quantity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, the fracture toughness of both epoxy and polyurethane composites has increased by as much as 48%.
Source: http://www.bayermaterialsciencenafta.com/