Abstract: European countries now have 205 GW of wind energy capacity. Wind energy accounted for 15% of the electricity the EU countries, including UK, in 2019. Wind turbines are large structures, which also can be more and more often installed offshore, with rather high costs of maintenance, repair and decommissioning. The requirements toward the wind turbine reliability are therefore very high, as compared with, for instance, automotive structures (where the service points are easily available) or even aerospace structures (which, in the case in aeroplanes, can be daily inspected, without any cost limitations). This sets rather high requirements to the materials, used in wind turbines, in particular, to the wind turbine blades, which are manufactured from lightweight composites, and are permanently moving, subject to complex mechanical and environmental loads. In this presentation, we will discuss several critical materials science related challenges, critical for wind turbine blades. Among these challenges, the problems of erosion and repair of wind turbine blades, protection and maintenance, and perspectives of waste management of composite blades are discussed. The applicability of computational modelling to the optimization of these processes and materials is demonstrated. The materials science solutions for the improving the wind turbine blade reliability, strength and end of life management are reviewed.

Keywords: Wind energy, Composites, Maintenance, Renewable energy.

Biography: Dr. Leon Mishnaevsky Jr., Senior Scientist at the Technical University of Denmark. Habilitation (Dr. Habil. Mechanics) from TU Darmstadt. He was Former visiting professor at Rutgers University/USA, CUMTB Beijing and Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts et Metiers (ENSAM) France. He is also the author of textbooks ”Computational mesomechanics of composites” (Wiley) and ”Micromechanics and nanosimulation of metals and composites” (Springer), coordinator of projects ”DURALEDGE/ Durable leading edges for wind turbine blades” (budget 3 Mio €), project "MAINTAINERGY/Maintenance and repair strategies for wind energy development” (budget 0.7 Mio €), US-Danish collaborative network "Structural health monitoring of wind turbine blades", and others. He organized many international symposia and conferences, including on leading edge erosion of wind turbine blades, 2020, on multiscale computational analysis of complex materials, 2017, on nanoengineered composites, 2015 and others. His publications receive more than 2600 citations (H-Index 31).