CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/791367
MARCH 2017 44 CompositesWorld PLANT TOUR Building our future...together! 815-987-6000 | www.ingersoll.com AUTOMATED FIBER PLACEMENT MACHINES LEADING THE PRODUCTIVITY CHALLENGE Talking later about the importance of bonding paste in wind blade manu- facturing, Hexion's Meunier notes that BP535's attributes — low density, high toughness, low sag, spreadability and longer working life — can allow wind blade fabricators to eliminate use of the "galac- tica," a multi-million dollar superstruc- ture typically used to support a shear web on the spar cap and mold shell until the bonding paste cures. is is part and parcel with an overall effort by blade manufac- turers and material suppliers to optimize blade fabrication, while not only main- taining, but improving, quality. Immediately adjacent to the produc- tion floor is the Vestas finishing hall, where operations are similar to those in the non-Vestas finishing building: NDT, filling, sanding, painting. One difference: Vestas tips its blades with copper, instead of aluminum. After a Vestas blade is painted and deemed complete by Aeris, one of the two Vestas employees on site is called upon to inspect and certify that it meets the company's standards. e blade is then transferred outside, ready for shipment (Fig. 9, p. 42). Human relations Technical issues aside, one of the biggest challenges Aeris faces, given its location, is finding, training and retaining qualified employees. Ceará state, like many developing regions, lacks or has a minimum of the education, health care and transportation resources necessary to provide a company like Aeris with a steady supply of able workers. is means that even the most qualified employees — most likely from Fortaleza, an hour away — probably have no access to reliable transportation, and could easily miss work if they or a family member is beset by poor health. Recognizing this, Lolli says Aeris has invested heavily, first, to recruit and train employees but, second, to create a work environment that provides basic needs for each worker. "It is not hard to manufacture blades fast," Lolli says. "But you must have the right people with the right behavior." Training at Aeris, Lolli notes, is organized into four tiers, revolving around processes On the production floor, Aeris runs four Vestas-made molds, making 54m blades for the Vestas V110-2.0MW turbine. Lolli says it takes Aeris about 24 hours to make one Vestas blade, with three blades per day coming off the floor. Highly engineered, each features a five-piece shear web and a pultruded carbon fiber spar cap. e result is a highly optimized blade that, at 8 MT, weighs 27% less than other blades of similar length. While we were in the Vestas production hall, workers had just placed the shear web in one mold half and were in the process of applying Hexion's BP535 bonding paste (bright green) to the mold's mating surfaces. With this done, technicians, supplies and equip- ment are cleared from the work area, and the other mold half is hinged over and onto the shear web half. It takes about 90 seconds for the mold to close. Workers then climb into the closed blade and remove excess bonding paste squeezed out when the halves mated.