Covestro, a supplier of high-tech polymer materials, has developed a new technology for manufacturing wind turbine rotor blades. The rotor blades are fabricated in a special process from a polyurethane resin and a glass fiber fabric. The company has now received the DNV GL certification for the resin.
The Covestro system is the world's first polyurethane resin to receive this certification. The resin was developed in a close cooperation between the Covestro Wind Competence Center in Denmark and the Polyurethane Research Center in Leverkusen. Covestro tested the polyurethane resin on an industrial scale together with Saertex, a manufacturer of glass fiber and carbon fiber fabrics, and Hübers, a specialist in process engineering. A prototype of a 45-meter-long spar cap recently was fabricated at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Stade, Germany.
