Performance analysis of reinforced epoxy functionalized carbon nanotubes composites for vertical axis wind turbine blade

Abstract

Synthetic materials using epoxy resin and woven Kevlar fiber nanocomposites were fabricated in the presence of functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (F-MWCNTs). Kevlar-reinforced epoxy nanocomposites were designed to manufacture a small blade of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT). It is important to estimate the deflection of the versatile composite turbine blades to forestall the blades from breakage. This paper investigates the effect of F-MWCNTs on mechanics and deflection of reinforced epoxy composites. The outcomes show that the mixing of F-MWCNTs with epoxy resin using a sonication process has a significant influence on the mechanical properties. Substantial improvement on the deflections was determined based on finite element analysis (FEA). The vortices from the vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) blades have a negative impact on power efficiency, since small blades are shown to be effective in reducing tip vortexes within the aerospace field. To support the theoretical movement of the VAWT blade, modeling calculations and analyzes were performed with the ANSYS code package to achieve insight into the sustainability of epoxy nanocomposites for turbine blade applications below aerodynamic, gravitational, and centrifugal loads. The results showed that the addition of F-MWCNTs to epoxy and Kevlar has a significant effect on the bias estimated by finite element analysis. ANSYS analysis results showed lower deflection on the blade using epoxy with an additional of 0.50 wt.% of MWCNTs-COOH at tip speed ratios of 2.1, 2.6, and 3.1.