Development of Novel Self-Healing Polymer Composites for Use in Wind Turbine Blades

Abstract

Wind turbine blades undergo fatigue and their performance depletes as time progresses due to the formation of internal cracks. Self-healing in polymers is a unique characteristic used to heal the cracks inherently as they form. In this study, a new method is demonstrated for supplying the monomer (that is quintessential for the healing process) uniformly throughout a fiber reinforced polymer composite. Commercial tubes were used to produce a vascular network for increased accessibility of the healing agent. The tube layouts were varied and their effect on the composite structure was observed. Conventional glass fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites (PMC) without microtubing were tested using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) to study the flexural visco–elastic behavior. The vascular network arrangement coupled with DMA data can be used to uniformly supply appropriate amount of healing agent to implement Self-healing in fiber reinforced PMC.