When thinking of alternative energy sources, solar, water, and wind energies are the most common ones. With wind power being one of the mature and proven subsectors of power generation on the market - there is still significant growth envisioned as wind turbines offer the prospect of cost-efficient generation of electricity and fast return on investment.
Toughened Blade Bonding Adhesives for Wind-Turbine Manufacturing
The rotor blades are a key component in the overall turbine, and particular attention must be paid to their fabrication at every stage from design through to production. In two-piece blade construction, two composite shells are bonded together along their leading and trailing edge and in the area around the shear webs. Since the blades are exposed to all kinds of weather and enormous stresses for decades, the adhesives used to bond them have to be just as durable. It has been shown that toughened adhesive systems are more resistant to damage initiation than standard materials with increasing numbers of cycles. For instance, after one million cycles in severe conditions, standard adhesive materials show at least twice as many cracks as toughened systems.
SikaPower® Range: Toughened Epoxy Systems from Sika and their Benefits
Sika supplies high strength, toughened Epoxy adhesives to join components of highly stressed wind turbine blades. The two major products for the wind range are:
- SikaPower®-1280, a 2-part epoxy adhesive for bonding of structural composite parts of wind turbine blades
- SikaPower®-1200, a 2-part epoxy adhesive for repair of wind turbine blades
Both products are based on Sika’s patented SmartCore Technology. SikaPower® adhesives are two component cold curing epoxies, containing a High Performance Toughening Agent that provides exceptional impact resistance designed to withstand dynamic stresses.
The new technology combines benefits from 1-component heat and 2-component cold curing epoxy systems: This bridges a former performance gap to one component heat curing epoxy systems traditionally used to bond automotive lightweight structures and the cold curing 2C-epoxy systems used in construction (other industry applications) with the benefit of being a cost-efficient time saving solution. Faster curing now saves cycle time.
More about the SmartCore Technology can be found here