It is a back-breaking job which also calls for a great deal of precision: rotor blades for wind energy facilities are made by hand, for the most part. Wide layers of glass or carbon fibers of up to 130 square meters must be draped - without any creases - into a form, where they are reinforced and later bound with other elements to create the perfect rotor blade. A research project at the Institute for Integrated Product Development (BIK) at the University of Bremen intends to simplify this difficult process for rotor blade manufacturers.

SAERTEX GmbH & Co. KG, the specialist in technical textiles, is a partner in the collaborative project "mapretec", along with the rotor blade manufacturer PN Rotor GmbH, the BIK partner in the project. The project is being supported by the Federal Ministry of the Environment, to the tune of approximately 950,000 Euros, and is meant to further automate the production of rotor blades with the aid of new production systems.

Rotor blades are produced primarily from continuous fiber-reinforced plastics. The production process is very cost-intensive as a result of the high number of reinforced fiber layers as well as the significant time and personnel expenses. Whereas the fabrics are still processed by hand in the forming process, in the future they are to be shaped automatically with the help of a system.

"The market is demanding the best quality, a great deal more speed in production, and the production costs must also be reduced, absolutely," states Dr. Dieter H. Müller of the BIK. "If Europe wants to maintain its position of technological leadership in the wind-energy field and meet the continuously growing demand, we have to create new, better and more efficient production methods," he explains. The goal of the mapretec research is to design an automated process chain for rotor-blade production as well as the prompt implementation of the results - thus making a critical contribution to maintaining competitiveness.

For more information: www.mapretec.de