Colloquia

Samenvatting

The high energy consumption of the world takes its toll on climate and nature. With the signing of the Paris agreement, countries must increase their efforts to combat climate change. Using renewable energy is one of the key aspects of their strategy with wind energy as a major player. Wind turbines are getting bigger and bigger to increase their potential production. The blades of a wind turbine are growing simultaneously with the height of a wind turbine. The large length of wind turbine blades introduces some logistic challenges. Larger wind turbine blades require more area to store them before they can be installed to the wind turbine. However, this can be a problem as the area may be limited due to space constraints or financial reasons. Rotating a wind turbine blade is a way to decrease its storage area but delivers some challenges as wind turbine blades are long, fragile and curved.

The objective of this thesis was to deliver a conceptual design for a tool to handle and rotate wind turbine blades, which can be used on storage and installation site in current and further generations of wind turbine blades. The research was carried out at TILLEN b.v. which is a small company that offers expertise in handling heavy and unwieldy loads.

Before the development of the tool could start, various experts were interviewed to gain a better understanding of the challenges and benefits that the tool entails. The needs of the company were investigated to set the requirements for the tool. Some contradictions have been observed in the needs of the company. Therefore, a literature research has been carried out into creative design to investigate which design methods could be used to develop the tool. Several design methods have been found which were used to set up a comprehensive design strategy. Among them are the design methods of Function-oriented search (FOS) and Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) which were used to generate innovative solutions and discover existing principles in other industries.

The followed design strategy has led to the development of three final concepts. These concepts met the needs of the company and provide a way to handle and rotate wind turbine blades on storage and installation site. A reduction in storage area of the wind turbine blades of 33% has been achieved.

The followed design strategy has been evaluated with the company to investigate how it could be used within the company. It turns out that the design strategy is quite extensive, which has led to some recommendations to shorten the design strategy for practical use within the company.