Which type of materials should be used for small wind turbine blades?
Arivu,
At the risk of giving a broad but useless answer, the materials should be:
a) Cheap to produce in the given design
b) Be sufficiently tough that impact damage is minimal
c) Be not so brittle that they shatter with impacts
d) Be sufficiently easy to machine or otherwise fabricate
e) Be capable of being fabricated to sufficiently close tolerances for the system
It rather depends on the scale and longevity of the system envisaged.
A 5W micropower system?
I'd use fibreglass, possibly gel-coated for UV protection.
A 500W system?
I'd ask for a tour of a windmill production plant!
You may want to read:
http://bit.ly/MAy69h
(page 8 onwards - the whole thing is rather well written!)
and
http://bit.ly/R4KrTJ
(page 10)
I agree with the points given by James above, but would add that environmental conditions can be of concern as well. What works in a southern dessert, may not work in the Arctic. For small turbines, there are many composite materials that may work depending on application. Laminated wood is still quite the decent choice.
As was answered earlier,most common material used is laminated wood but when designing the blade,for cost effectiveness of small turbines you should consider optimizing blade structural parameters such as stiffness, stability, and material weight and may be use this as a criteria to decide on wood or composite materials.
With the above answers I would like to add one more point, that is aerodynamic shape.
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