We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Leveraging the Advantages of Additive Manufacturing to Produce Advanced Hybrid Composite Structures for Marine Energy Systems.
- Authors
Murdy, Paul; Dolson, Jack; Miller, David; Hughes, Scott; Beach, Ryan; Mandolini, Marco
- Abstract
Featured Application: This work outlines the opportunities for producing novel hybrid structures for marine energy systems by leveraging the benefits of combining additive and composite manufacturing techniques, and the potential this has for rapid prototyping. Many marine energy systems designers and developers are beginning to implement composite materials into the load-bearing structures of their devices, but traditional mold-making costs for composite prototyping are disproportionately high and lead times can be long. Furthermore, established molding techniques for marine energy structures generally require many manufacturing steps, such as secondary bonding and tooling. This research explores the possibilities of additively manufactured internal composite molds and how they can be used to reduce costs and lead times through novel design features and processes for marine energy composite structures. In this approach, not only can the composite mold be additively manufactured but it can also serve as part of the final load-bearing structure. We developed a conceptual design and implemented it to produce a reduced-scale additive/composite tidal turbine blade section to fully demonstrate the manufacturing possibilities. The manufacturing was successful and identified several critical features that could expedite the tidal turbine blade manufacturing process, such as single-piece construction, an integrated shear web, and embedded root fasteners. The hands-on manufacturing also helped identify key areas for continued research to allow for efficient, durable, and low-cost additive/composite-manufactured structures for future marine energy systems.
- Subjects
OFFSHORE structures; COMPOSITE structures; TURBINE blades; ENERGY futures; CONCEPTUAL design; RAPID prototyping
- Publication
Applied Sciences (2076-3417), 2021, Vol 11, Issue 3, p1336
- ISSN
2076-3417
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/app11031336