Design and processing of structural components in biocomposite materials. Rotor blade for wind turbine cars

The awareness for the environment as well as the legislation restriction increased the interest towards the use of biocomposite material. An intense research activity is carried out nowadays in order to evaluate their behaviour in structural applications and to make this new class of material a suitable substitute for inorganic fibre reinforcement. The aim of this thesis work is to evaluate the potential of natural fibres reinforced composites in structural applications. In this thesis study, different flax reinforcements produced by different companies were purchased and analysed in order to investigate their prices in the current market and their main fabrics’ parameters. Different composite laminates were realized with the vacuum infusion process and several specimen were produced in order study the mechanical properties (tensile, shear and damping) of the materials. A Matlab program was developed in order to create a model able to optimize the structure layout of a small-scale wind turbine for a windmill car. At the same time a finite element model was created and a parametric study was performed. The data obtained from the mechanical investigation were inserted as input in the programs. The results of the two modelling programs were compared. The results of the investigation allowed the production of three blades, one with the conventional carbon composite, one with the flax reinforcement and one in with both carbon and flax hybrid reinforcements.