Light rotor

The objective of the Light Rotor project is to develop the basis for design of wind turbine blades for use on large rotors in the order of 10MW with lower weight, tailored aeroelastic response and optimized aerodynamic efficiency. This will be achieved by developing and applying a combination of thick airfoils, blade sweep and optimized structure as a mean of overcoming the challenges of up-scaling. The project contains three work packages: 1) Design of an airfoil family with focus on the thicker airfoils to increase the stiffness/reduce the weight of the rotor; 2) Design of a rotor for low weight and tailored aeroelastic reponse using aeroelastic tools; 3) Design of the structure and layup of the blade for reduced weight. When up-scaling, either relatively higher weight or new materials are necessary if a direct up-scaling is carried out. This is due to the fact that the wind turbine weight will increase with the cube of the rotor radius, whereas the electric power will increase with the square. The results from the project will be a design of a lightweight blade with a length of around 85m and new methods for design of the new generation of rotors