Engineers transform local park with unusual bridge design: 'Had to design the entire structural system of the bridge from scratch'

Wind power is a large part of our renewable energy economy, but recycling the composite materials used in turbine components has been challenging. 

To offset that pressure, some experts have developed novel ways to repurpose decommissioned blades for shelter and infrastructure projects.

Jud Ready, a research engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology, has spearheaded one such project in nearby Beaverbrook Park, as summarized in a writeup from the university on Tech Xplore. 

Funding issues had prevented the park from building a bridge over one of its creeks that would have helped expand its walkable woodland areas for residents and visitors. 

Ready, who'd frequented the park as a graduate student, found out from a colleague that decommissioned wind turbine blades were being used in bridge-building projects in other areas. He saw a chance to improve his own local park while helping to repurpose materials that might have ended up in a landfill. 

That colleague was Russell Gentry, a professor in the School of Architecture who had been exploring how to upcycle wind turbine blades into functional infrastructure for eight years. 

Gentry is a member of the Re-Wind Network, an international organization that's helped build two bridges in Ireland using discarded wind turbines, and he saw an opportunity to be the first to do so in the U.S.

"It's not recycling because we're not taking the material back to its original state; it's really adaptive reuse," Gentry said. 

Most wind turbines have a 20- to 30-year lifespan before they need to be repowered through component upgrades, or decommissioned entirely. While 85-90% of the components are easily recyclable, composite materials for blades, nacelle covers, and rotor covers are more difficult to deal with.

Those parts are generally fiberglass or carbon fiber mixed with epoxy resin. These composites are lightweight and durable, but they are equally troublesome for recycling and reclaiming usable materials. 

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There have been some advances in using bio-derived resins to replace these composites, and recycling processes have been improving as well, but there's value in using the blades as part of infrastructure projects.

It's a relatively new concept, though, and that means a lot of work was needed to comply with building regulations. 

"We've essentially had to design the entire structural system of the bridge from scratch, as existing building and bridge codes do not have much information about either the composite materials used in wind turbine blades or in adaptive reuse for new construction," said Gabriel Ackall, a civil engineering student at Georgia Tech. 

"We used advanced modeling software combined with the knowledge we've gained from over a half-dozen years of wind turbine blade testing and prototyping to make the bridge a reality and ensure safety."

The wind power sector employs around 150,000 people in the U.S. alone, and it accounted for more than 10% of the energy generated in the country in 2022. Onshore wind projects are expected to double by 2030 compared to 2017-2023 numbers, and offshore wind may quadruple in that same period. 

It will take innovations like these to maintain the sustainability of wind power as an eco-friendly alternative to burning dirty fuels for energy while supporting a circular economy that keeps the environment free from harmful waste. 

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