Designing and developing improved materials has been identified as key to achieving the goals of European Innovation Policy, in line with the EUROPE 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Advanced materials represent “an invisible revolution” introducing new functionalities and improved properties, adding value to existing products and processes and ultimately enabling commercial and industrial success through sustainable systemic changes. Advanced materials have been identified as a Key Enabling Technology (KET) an area of key industrial competence determining Europe’s global competitiveness. The PowderBlade Project has delivered to market an advanced new materials technology with significant market disruptive potential. The renewables energy market was the initial market targeted in this project for commercialisation. The POWDERBLADE materials technology responded to the conflicting demands of the renewable energy sector for longer, lighter, more efficient blades but at a lower cost.
The objectives of PowderBlade, as described in Section 1.1 of the DoA, above are outlined below:
Objective 1: To implement a commercialisation strategy leading to increased market awareness of the benefits of the new materials technology, successful demonstration of the new technology in a commercial setting, development of a sales order pipeline and achievement of the first commercial contracts by the end of the project.
Objective 2: To achieve 20% cost reduction by maximising the allowable strain and strength of the carbon fibre/glass fibre hybrid materials from powder epoxy – this can be achieved by better, through-thickness infusion and better fibre alignment than standard resin infusion.
Objective 3: To demonstrate a potential reduced cycle time of less than 24 hours for very large blades (c. 100m) by using powder epoxy and hybrid carbon/glass construction of the blade, thus achieving cost optimisation and supporting successful commercialisation of the new technology.
