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EP-4739726-A1 - METHOD OF PRODUCING A WIND TURBINE BLADE, A RESPECTIVELY PRODUCED WIND TURBINE BLADE AND A RESIN COMPOSITION SUITABLE FOR USE IN THE PRODUCTION

EP4739726A1EP 4739726 A1EP4739726 A1EP 4739726A1EP-4739726-A1

Abstract

A resin composition suitable for use in the production of a wind turbine blade or a part of any of the foregoing by means of a vacuum infusion method is described. The resin composition comprises an epoxy component, an amine component further comprising at least one imine functional group, and a polyfunctional (meth)acrylate component. Moreover, a method of producing a wind turbine blade a nacelle or a part of any of the foregoing and a respectively produced wind turbine blade, a nacelle or a part of any of the foregoing are described.

Inventors

  • STECHER, Harald

Assignees

  • Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy A/S

Dates

Publication Date
20260513
Application Date
20240819

Claims (15)

  1. 1. A resin composition comprising: an epoxy component; an amine component further comprising at least one imine functional group; a polyfunctional (meth) acrylate component.
  2. 2. The resin composition as set forth in claim 1, wherein the epoxy component is selected from the group consisting of glycidyl ethers, glycidyl esters, glycidyl amines, divi- nylbenzene dioxide, cycloaliphatic epoxides, and combinations thereof .
  3. 3. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the amine component comprises one, two or three imine functional groups.
  4. 4. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the amine component is selected from the group consisting of aliphatic polyamines, arylaliphatic polyamines, cycloaliphatic polyamines, alkanolamines, polyetherpolyamines, and combinations thereof, wherein each component further comprises at least one imine functional group .
  5. 5. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the polyfunctional (meth) acrylate component comprises two or three (meth) acrylate functional groups .
  6. 6. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the polyfunctional (meth) acrylate component is selected from the group consisting of hexanediol diacrylate, butanediol diacrylate, dipropylene glycol diacrylate, diethylene glycol diacrylate, neopentyldiol diacrylate, diacrylated Bisphenol A diglycidlyether , trimethylolpropane triacrylate and combinations thereof.
  7. 7. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein a weight ratio of the polyfunctional (meth) acrylate component to the epoxy component is in a range of from 1:9 to 1:1.
  8. 8. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the resin composition further comprises an amine hardener.
  9. 9. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the resin composition has a viscosity of less than 300 mPa-s at 25 °C.
  10. 10. The resin composition as set forth in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the resin composition has a viscosity of less than 150 mPa -s at 25 °C.
  11. 11. A method of producing a wind turbine blade, a nacelle or a part of any of the foregoing, the method comprising: applying a resin composition according to any of the preceding claims into a mold by a vacuum infusion method, in particular vacuum assisted resin transfer molding, curing the resin composition.
  12. 12. The method as set forth in claim 11, wherein the infusion resin has a viscosity of less than 300 mPa-s at infusion temperature .
  13. 13. The method as set forth in any one of claims 11 or 12, wherein the step of curing the resin composition comprises heating the resin composition to a temperature in the range of from 60 to 150 °C, in particular 70 to 120 °C.
  14. 14. The method as set forth in any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein the method further comprises, after curing the resin composition, removing the mold.
  15. 15. A wind turbine blade, a nacelle or a part of any of the foregoing obtainable by a method according to any one of claims 11 to 14.

Description

DESCRIPTION Method of producing a wind turbine blade , a respectively produced wind turbine blade and a resin composition suitable for use in the production Field of invention The present invention relates to the field of wind turbine blades , in particular to a resin composition suitable for use in a method of producing a wind turbine blade by means of a vacuum infusion method, and a method of producing a wind turbine blade , a nacelle or a part of any of the foregoing . Art Background Wind power is considered one of the cleanest , most environmentally friendly energy sources presently available , and wind turbines have gained increased attention for utili zing this energy source . A modern wind turbine typically includes a tower, generator, gearbox, nacelle , and one or more rotor blades . The rotor blades capture kinetic energy of wind and transmit the kinetic energy in the form of rotational energy so as to turn a shaft coupling the rotor blades to a gearbox or directly to the generator . The generator then converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy that may be fed into a power grid . Various parts of a wind turbine , such as wind turbine blades or nacelles , are typically made of a composite material of glass fiber reinforced polymer resin . A conventionally used method for producing such composite material includes vacuum assisted resin trans fer molding (VARTM) , wherein a liquid or flowable resin is inj ected in a mold under application of vacuum . To this end, low viscosity resins are generally used which reduce cycle time of manufacture of parts . Moreover, recycling and reprocessing of composites becomes a more and more important topic. A potential solution involves Covalent Adaptable Networks (CAN) , also called dynamic networks or vitrimers. One of the most promising technologies is Imine based CANs . This technology has, as an example, been patented and marketed by the company Mallinda (see for instance WO 2020/051506 and WO 2022/187451) . It is based on easily available known components. The concept builds on imine containing building blocks that are crosslinked by different reactive groups with epoxy groups being the preferred moiety . However, imine containing hardeners for epoxy resins are bulky molecules with high viscosity. As a result, this system is not suitable for vacuum infusion systems for wind blades because a low enough viscosity combined with long open time and fast cure is not possible to achieve in a feasible way. Other CAN technologies like disulfide based networks or azaMichael networks are described in the literature. Disulfide based CANs are of interest, but the necessary hardeners are not industrialized. Aza-Michael based CANs are described in literature (Christian Taplan, Marc Guerre, and Filip E. Du Prez; Journal of the American Chemical Society 2021 143 (24) , 9140-9150; DOI: 10.1021/ j acs . lc03316 ) and a reaction product of different acrylate based components and amine components. But the reaction of an (already once reacted) secondary amine with another acrylate is not favored, which impacts the achievable network density. Also the reaction speed is very high and problematic to achieve a good quality vacuum infusion of a large part. A combination of a small amount of acrylates in an epoxyamine resin has been described by Dow (WO 2012/148815 Al) . The patent application describes the use of few percent (up to 4 %) acrylate in the epoxy part. This reference describes that the reaction product (a secondary amine of a primary amine and an acrylate ) is able to further react with an epoxy group forming a tertiary amine . The imine based CAN technology has not yet been able to be implemented for vacuum infusion, but only for other processes e . g . prepreg processes . Other CAN technologies are not yet commercially available and have not been able to deliver the desired and required set of properties for application in vacuum infusion of wind blades . Thus , there may be a need for an implementation of imine based CAN technology for vacuum infusion, in particular for an imine based resin composition having an appropriate ( in particular suf ficiently low) viscosity allowing its use in a vacuum infusion method for the production of wind turbine blades or other parts of a wind turbine . Summary of the Invention This need may be met by the subj ect matter according to the independent claims . Advantageous embodiments of the present invention are described by the dependent claims . According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a resin composition ( suitable for use in the production of a wind turbine blade or a part thereof by means of a vacuum infusion method) comprising an epoxy component , an amine component further comprising at least one imine functional group, and a polyfunctional (meth) acrylate component ( comprising two or more (meth) acrylate functional groups ) . According to a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a method