Biome Renewables Cuts Wind Turbine Cost by 80% with Renishaw’s Metal 3D Printing https://ift.tt/3mzt7Ji Canada-based industrial engineering and design firm Biome Renewables, founded five years ago in Ontario, is on a mission to optimize the power of nature in order to ensure a sustainable future, and focuses specifically on wind turbines. According to the website, its PowerCone ocean turbine retrofit, inspired by the maple seed and the Kingfisher bird, increases annual energy production up to 13% by channeling wind onto the blades in order to address root leakage, which is a big airflow issue that draws power away from the blades. Recently, global engineering technologies company Renishaw and the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) partnered up to make two parts for the PowerCone ocean turbine using Renishaw’s metal additive manufacturing expertise.
Biome Renewables had decided to move into tidal wave energy, and reached out to NSCC for help creating a prototype due to its ocean-related technology and tidal wave energy expertise, as well as its engineering research facility, which has been used to build prototypes for multiple industries. However, the college typically worked with plastic 3D printing, and something stronger and more heavy duty was required for an ocean environment. The PowerCone turbine needed to be able to cope with strong tidal forces, stay standing in the wake of debris impact, and withstand corrosion and major loads, or it could be lost to the deep, polluting the test site and slowing the project. NSCC determined that a stainless steel PowerCone, featuring non-traditional designs, would be best, as it could then possibly avoid cavitation, which is turbine damage caused by rapid pressure changes in liquid. The college asked Renishaw for help due to its expertise in additive manufacturing, which has been used to fabricate components for wind turbines in the past.
Because of the unique project requirements, the turbine blades had to be lightweight, but not hollow, so they could tolerate a marine environment without being as likely to sustain debris impact. So NSCC and Renishaw thought that an off-the-shelf turbine, retrofitted with a 3D printed PowerCone, would be the best solution. An internal lattice structure was used to reduce the weight but maintain the turbine’s strength, and surface finishing decreased roughness to make the blades more hydrodynamic. The Renishaw AM250 3D printer was used to make the parts, and print time was divided between the college and Renishaw. The longest build lasted 150 hours, but all the parts were printed within one month. The PowerCone retrofit sits on the turbine’s hub, co-rotating with its rotor and featuring curved propellers to reduce drag and improve efficiency by up to 15%. Due to its large size, each blade of the retrofit was printed separately, and the parts were then welded together.
Renishaw, NSCC, and Biome Renewables used these 3D printed parts to build a prototype turbine, which was tested, with the retrofit and propellers, during the second month of the project at Strangford Loch in Northern Ireland. The testing showed that, after the turbine was submerged, the 3D printed modifications did indeed help produce much more power over a range of tidal velocities.
(Source/Images: Renishaw) Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com October 29, 2020 at 07:02AM
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