Spain - Automating wind turbine blade manufacture

Gamesa Corporación Tecnológica and M.Torres Diseños Industriales will cooperate on R&D for a new concept for wind turbine blade design, as well as on an automated wind turbine blade manufacturing process.

The project foresees investments totaling €100 million and aims for a production process that will provide “significant improvements to blade manufacturing cycle times, along with consequent manufacturing unit cost reductions,” and noise reduction.

The first prototype units of the automated process are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2010 and the first mass produced composite blades will be assembled onto the mainstream segment of Gamesa wind turbines from 2010.

M. Torres Diseños Industriales will take part in the project as the process’ capital goods manufacturer and will apply its own technology – used in the aeronautics sector where it provides lamination technology for composite materials – to the production of wind turbine blades.

José Antonio Malumbres, Gamesa's Managing Director of Technology, says: “This production technology will provide Gamesa with an important long-lasting competitive edge... In addition to the manufacturing process, Gamesa will make significant aerodynamic and acoustic improvements to this new family of blades that were implemented in its technology development programs over the last three years”.

For more information please contact Trevor ievert at ts@windfair.net