Experimental Investigation and Numerical Simulation of Granite Powder Filled Polymer Composites for Wind Turbine Blade: A Comparative Analysis

This paper describes the mechanical, thermomechanical, and thermal behavior of unfilled E-glass fiber (10-50 wt%) reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites and granite powder filled (8-24 wt%) GFRP composite in different weight percentages, respectively. The void fraction of unfilled glass epoxy composite is decreased from 7.71% to 3.17% with the increase in fiber loading from 10 to 50 wt%. However, void fraction for granite powder filled GFRP composites show reverse in trend. The granite powder addition in glass-epoxy composites show significant improvement in hardness (37-47 Hv), impact strength (31.56-37.2 kJ/m(2)), and stress intensity factor (by 14.29% for crack length of 5mm) of the composites. The thermo-mechanical analyses also show strong correlation with the mechanical performance of the composites. The minimum difference of 0.17 GPa in storage and flexural moduli are observed for unfilled 20 wt% glass epoxy composite; whereas, maximum difference of 0.71 GPa is recorded for unfilled 50 wt% glass epoxy composite. Moreover, the numerical and experimentally measured thermal conductivity of unfilled and granite powder filled epoxy composites are within the lower and upper bound values. Hence, a successful attempt is presented for mechanical analysis of full scale model by finite element analysis. The results show that finite element analysis predicted reasonably actual stress value and tip deflection of wind turbine blade. (C) 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers