Composite Materials

Abstract

This chapter presents the composite materials applied to water current turbine (WCT) hydrokinetic turbines. Here will be briefly described the features of these turbines, the fluid-dynamic behavior of the rotor, and its structure formed into a composite material. From the structural viewpoint an advanced composite material formulation that allows an appropriate structural design is introduced. The generalized composite formulations here introduced take into account the nonlinear mechanical behavior of the component materials (matrix and fiber), as the local behavior of plasticity and damage, its anisotropy, the fiber–matrix debonding, its material composition via a general mixing theory, and also the homogenized structural damage index definition. Hydrokinetic turbines bring newer advantages and greater possibilities for green hydroelectric power generation. For this reason, achieving a very high lift blade rotor to take the maximum kinetic energy advantage for rivers with a slow velocity flow is very important. A very low inertia rotor permits a self-starting effect for the axial water flow turbine to take the maximum advantage of the river kinetic energy which is very important in this kind of devices. A turbine rotor hydrofoil made in composite material can be designed for this purpose. One of the most commonly used composite material analysis formulation is herein introduced. Specifically, a particular Serial/Parallel (S/P) Mixing Theory with a better relation between model accuracy versus computational cost is provided. In front to other formulation, the S/P Mixing Theory not increasing the degrees of freedom of the problem because is a constitutive formulation. A brief introduction to fluid-dynamic concept involving in the analysis of a rotor of this type of turbines is presented. This allows seeing the origin of the actions applied to the rotor of this type of turbines. In addition, two simple examples that show the potentiality of the model are presented in this chapter. Then, an application to the design of a rotor blade of a passing turbine, made of carbon fiber-reinforced matrix composite material, is shown.