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Covestro Delivers First Ever Order of Polyurethane Resin for Wind Blades © Covestro
The joint team of Covestro and its partners is pleased about the first commercial use of a polyurethane resin for the manufacture of wind rotor blades in China.
Covestro, a leading global supplier of high-performance polymer
our vision of creating products that benefit society and improve people’s
materials, has delivered its first commercial order of polyurethane
lives all over the world.”
raw materials for wind blades to China.
Zilu Liang, Deputy Chief Engineer, Wind Power Products at TMT, said, “As an innovative material, polyurethane, compared to epoxy resin,
China is the world’s largest wind power market with 221 GW of installed
has advantages in costs and in the production process. We have
capacity at the end of 2018, according to the World Wind Energy
cooperated with Covestro since 2016, and now we have achieved
Association . The blades, produced by Zhuzhou Times New Material
continuous production. We hope to further collaborate with Covestro
Technology (TMT), one of the largest manufacturers of wind blades
to explore large-scale wind blades and wind blades completely made of
in China, have then been delivered to Envision, a leading global wind
polyurethane.”
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turbine technology company. They are scheduled to be installed in a wind farm in East China in July 2019.
Superior properties
Covestro delivered polyurethane resin to TMT for the production of 18
Covestro’s novel polyurethane infusion resin was developed to help the
polyurethane wind blades of 59.5-metre-length, also for the spar caps
wind power industry meet the growing demand for longer wind blade
and shear webs. These blades were delivered to Envision, heralding the
designs. Wind turbine rotor blades of this kind are typically made out
successful deployment of Covestro’s innovative polyurethane resin in
of fiberglass-reinforced resin by applying vacuum infusion technology.
blades for commercial wind farm projects.
The successful use of polyurethane resin for manufacturing large-scale
To ensure successful deployment, the Covestro wind power team
rotor blades for wind turbines suggests that the material itself features
produced a prototype of the wind blades which has passed static and
superior mechanical properties and anti-fatigue performance. There are
fatigue tests. The prototype was put into trial operation at a wind farm in
also benefits for the production processes in the wind blade factory, for
central China in 2018.
example, a faster curing process and better processing properties to deliver higher productivity levels.
Polyurethane resin – a game-changing innovation
Irene Li, Head of PU Application Development Asia Pacific at Covestro,
Ulrich Liman, Global Head of R&D, Business Unit Polyurethanes at
summarized: “This is the first step to realizing the industrialization of
Covestro said, “We are very excited to be working with Envision and
polyurethane resin in the wind industry, opening up a new chapter in
TMT on this first sales order of PU wind blades in China. Polyurethane
polyurethane chemistry. We believe that our polyurethane solution
resin in the production of wind blades, is a game-changing innovation
delivers significant advantages in wind blade production and along the
delivered by Covestro teams around the world. We remain committed to
value chain.”
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For further information: www.covestro.com
https://wwindea.org/blog/2019/02/25/wind-power-capacity-worldwide-reaches-600-gw-539-gw-added-in-2018/
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