Experimental study on the properties of Alfa/wool woven fabrics reinforced epoxy composite as an application in wind turbine blades

Abstract

Wind energy is the kinetic energy of wind transformed into electrical energy by a system known as a wind turbine. All of the different parts of a wind turbine, like blades, hub, gearbox, nacelle, and tower, blades are usually made of glass and carbon fibers for better strength, lower weight, and better resistance to corrosion. The main limitations of these materials are the availability, non-biodegradable, health hazards, and fabrication cost. The development of interwoven fabric based on natural fiber for composite production is a novel approach that can be adopted to address the challenges of the balanced mechanical properties of composites. In this paper, alfa and wool fibers were selected as reinforcing materials to develop four woven fabrics, and unsaturated low viscosity epoxy resin was chosen as the matrix, the wovens were produced using the weaving of taffetas technique. The vacuum molding process was adopted to produce the hybrid composite due to its superior advantages over the hand lay-up technique. Alfa fibers have been previously treated with various concentrations of NaOH (1, 2, 3 mol) for 2 h. The effect of the alkaline treatment on the interface fiber matrix is analyzed. The results of static tests on composites showed an improvement in the tensile and flexural strengths of composites reinforced with woven fabrics. The mechanical performances of Alfa/wool yarns and fabrics obtained allow us to predict the actual perspectives of substitution of glass fibers by natural fibers for the application in wind blades.