scholarly journals The Circular Economy Lifecycle Assessment and Visualization Framework: A Case Study of Wind Blade Circularity in Texas

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Hanes ◽  
Tapajyoti Ghosh ◽  
Alicia Key ◽  
Annika Eberle
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Wind Turbine Blades ◽  
Mechanical Recycling ◽  
Lifecycle Assessment ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Framework Development

Moving the current linear economy toward circularity is expected to have environmental, economic, and social impacts. Various modeling methods, including economic input-output modeling, life cycle assessment, agent-based modeling, and system dynamics, have been used to examine circular supply chains and analyze their impacts. This work describes the newly developed Circular Economy Lifecycle Assessment and Visualization (CELAVI) framework, which is designed to model how the impacts of supply chains might change as circularity increases. We first establish the framework with a discussion of modeling capabilities that are needed to capture circularity transitions; these capabilities are based on the fact that supply chains moving toward circularity are dynamic and therefore not at steady state, may encompass multiple industrial sectors or other interdependent supply chains and occupy a large spatial area. To demonstrate the capabilities of CELAVI, we present a case study on end-of-life wind turbine blades in the U.S. state of Texas. Our findings show that depending on exact process costs and transportation distances, mechanical recycling could lead to 69% or more of end-of-life turbine blade mass being kept in circulation rather than being landfilled, with only a 7.1% increase in global warming potential over the linear supply chain. We discuss next steps for framework development.

scholarly journals Rain Erosion Maps for Wind Turbines Based on Geographical Locations: A Case Study in Ireland and Britain

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Pugh ◽  
M. M. Stack
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Wind Turbine Blades ◽  
Weather Patterns ◽  
The Uk

AbstractErosion rates of wind turbine blades are not constant, and they depend on many external factors including meteorological differences relating to global weather patterns. In order to track the degradation of the turbine blades, it is important to analyse the distribution and change in weather conditions across the country. This case study addresses rainfall in Western Europe using the UK and Ireland data to create a relationship between the erosion rate of wind turbine blades and rainfall for both countries. In order to match the appropriate erosion data to the meteorological data, 2 months of the annual rainfall were chosen, and the differences were analysed. The month of highest rain, January and month of least rain, May were selected for the study. The two variables were then combined with other data including hailstorm events and locations of wind turbine farms to create a general overview of erosion with relation to wind turbine blades.

scholarly journals Sustainable End-of-Life Management of Wind Turbine Blades: Overview of Current and Coming Solutions

Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1124
Author(s):  
Leon Mishnaevsky Mishnaevsky
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Natural Fiber ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Wind Turbine Blades ◽  
Maintenance And Repair ◽  
Life Management ◽  
Large Wind

Various scenarios of end-of-life management of wind turbine blades are reviewed. “Reactive” strategies, designed to deal with already available, ageing turbines, installed in the 2000s, are discussed, among them, maintenance and repair, reuse, refurbishment and recycling. The main results and challenges of “pro-active strategies”, designed to ensure recyclability of new generations of wind turbines, are discussed. Among the main directions, the wind turbine blades with thermoplastic and recyclable thermoset composite matrices, as well as wood, bamboo and natural fiber-based composites were reviewed. It is argued that repair and reuse of wind turbine blades, and extension of the blade life has currently a number of advantages over other approaches. While new recyclable materials have been tested in laboratories, or in some cases on small or medium blades, there are remaining technological challenges for their utilization in large wind turbine blades.

scholarly journals Design for and from Recycling: A Circular Ecodesign Approach to Improve the Circular Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 9861
Author(s):  
Jorge Martínez Leal ◽  
Stéphane Pompidou ◽  
Carole Charbuillet ◽  
Nicolas Perry
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Design Phase ◽  
Design For Recycling ◽  
Circular Design

In the context of a circular economy, one can observe that (i) recycling chains are not adapted enough to the end-of-life products they have to process and that (ii) products are not sufficiently well designed either to integrate at best their target recycling chain. Therefore, a synergy between product designers and recycling-chains stakeholders is lacking, mainly due to their weak communication and the time-lag between the product design phase and its end-of-life treatment. Many Design for Recycling approaches coexist in the literature. However, to fully develop a circular economy, Design from Recycling also has to be taken into account. Thus Re-Cycling, a complete circular design approach, is proposed. First, a design for recycling methodology linking recyclability assessment to product design guidelines is proposed. Then, a design from recycling methodology is developed to assess the convenience of using secondary raw materials in the design phase. The recyclability of a smartphone and the convenience of using recycled materials in a new cycle are both analyzed to demonstrate our proposal. The Fairphone 2® and its treatment by the WEEE French takeback scheme are used as a case study.

scholarly journals Tackling the Circular Economy Challenges—Composites Recycling: Used Tyres, Wind Turbine Blades, and Solar Panels

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Kinga Korniejenko ◽  
Barbara Kozub ◽  
Agnieszka Bąk ◽  
Ponnambalam Balamurugan ◽  
Marimuthu Uthayakumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Solar Panels ◽  
Wind Turbine Blades ◽  
Material Recovery ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Circular Economy System ◽  
Economy System

Transformation of waste into resources is an important part of the circular economy. Nowadays, the recovery of materials in the most effective way is crucial for sustainable development. Composite materials offer great opportunities for product development and high performance in use, but their position in a circular economy system remains challenging, especially in terms of material recovery. Currently, the methods applied for recycling composites are not always effective. The aim of the article is to analyse the most important methods of material recovery from multilateral composites. The manuscript presents three case studies related to the recycling of products manufactured from composites: used tyres, wind turbine blades, and solar panels. It shows the advantages and disadvantages of currently applied methods for multilateral composite utilisation and presents further trends in composite recycling. The results show that increasing volumes of end-of-life composites have led to increased attention from government, industry, and academia.

scholarly journals Analysis of Barriers to Transitioning from a Linear to a Circular Economy for End of Life Materials: A Case Study for Waste Feathers

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Dieckmann ◽  
Leila Sheldrick ◽  
Mike Tennant ◽  
Rupert Myers ◽  
Christopher Cheeseman
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Organizational Context ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk

This research aimed to develop a simple but robust method to identify the key barriers to the transition from a linear to a circular economy (CE) for end of life products or material. Nine top-tier barrier categories have been identified that influence this transition. These relate to the basic material properties and product characteristics, the availability of suitable processing technology, the environmental impacts associated with current linear management, the organizational context, industry and supply chain issues, external drivers, public perception, the regulatory framework and the overall economic viability of the transition. The method provides a novel and rapid way to identify and quantitatively assess the barriers to the development of CE products. This allows mitigation steps to be developed in parallel with new product design. The method has been used to assess the potential barriers to developing a circular economy for waste feathers generated by the UK poultry industry. This showed that transitioning UK waste feathers to circularity faces significant barriers across numerous categories and is not currently economically viable. The assessment method developed provides a novel approach to identifying barriers to circularity and has potential to be applied to a wide range of end of life materials and products.

A generalized computational approach to predict high-frequency acoustic pressure response of cavity structures for structural health monitoring of wind turbine blades

2021 ◽  
pp. 0309524X2110605
Author(s):  
Caleb Traylor ◽  
Murat Inalpolat
Keyword(s):  
Structural Health Monitoring ◽  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Turbine Blades ◽  
Computational Approach ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Wind Turbine Blades ◽  
Structural Health ◽  
Geometrical Acoustics

This paper details the development of a generalized computational approach that enables prediction of cavity-internal sound pressure distribution due to flow-generated noise at high frequencies. The outcomes of this research is of particular interest for development of an acoustics-based structural health monitoring system for wind turbine blades. The methodology builds from existing reduced-order aeroacoustic modeling techniques and ray tracing based geometrical acoustics and is demonstrated on the model NREL 5 MW wind turbine blade as a case study. The computational predictions demonstrated that damage could be successfully detected in the first half of the blade cavity near the root and that the change in frequency content may be indicative of the type of damage that has occurred. This study provides a foundation to analyze specific blades and likely damage cases for determining key factors of system design such as number and placement of sensors as well as for hardware selection.

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