How to crush wind turbine blades

Can wind turbine blades be recycled?

This paper analyzes and compares existing recycling technologies, including heat recovery, chemical recovery, and mechanical recovery. The primary component of wind turbine blades is GFRP, an inexpensive material ideally recycled through mechanical means. Therefore, this paper proposes an innovative hierarchical mechanical recycling method.

What is raw-crushed wind-turbine blade as waste material?

Concept of raw-crushed wind-turbine blade as waste material defined. Solution for recycling wind-turbine blades to be dismantled in the next years. Waste composed of glass fibers and spherical particles of balsa wood and polyurethane. Good concrete workability by five-stage mixing process and plasticizer adjustment.

What is raw crushed wind turbine blade (rcwtb)?

The material, Raw-Crushed Wind-Turbine Blade (RCWTB), consists of fiberglass-composite fibers, polyurethane, and balsa-wood particles. It serves as concrete fibers and aggregates, according to its physical and microscopic characterizations.

How are wind turbine blades made?

Wind turbine blades are built from multilayered laminates, made from glass or carbon fibers, and thermoset polymer matrix, joined by adhesive layers, and partally filled with foams. The mechanical disintegration of wind turbine blades into smaller parts (realized as cutting, shredding, crushing, milling) is a step of almost every recycling process.

Can wind turbine blades be used in concrete mixes?

Hence, the approach of this research is to process wind-turbine blades through mechanical grinding, so that the resulting residue may be used as an addition in concrete mixes. It involves minimum economic and energetic costs and no thermal or chemical treatment whatsoever.

Can turbine blades be converted into raw materials for concrete solutions?

The conversion of turbine blades into raw materials for concrete solutions is proposed in this paper, through a novel recycling process entailing non-selective cutting, crushing, and sieving of the blade walls, without component separation.