Composite materials

Abstract

This chapter presents an application of composite materials to water current turbine (WCT). It describes the features of these turbines, the fluid-dynamic behavior of the rotor, and its structure. Hydrokinetic turbines bring new 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, which is very important to increase its efficiency. A turbine rotor hydrofoil made in composite material can be designed for this purpose.Composites are analyzed using the Serial/Parallel (S/P) Mixing Theory, which provides an excellent relation between results accuracy and computational cost. This formulation, together with other advanced numerical strategies also described in this chapter, allow accounting for the nonlinear mechanical behavior of the component materials (matrix and fiber), 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.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 composite 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.