What Material Do I Use to Create Wind Turbine Blades?

What Material Do I Use to Create Wind Turbine Blades?

One of the most difficult parts of making your own wind turbine is producing suitable blades. Wind turbine blades go through enormous stresses and must be made to quite tight tolerances if they are to balance and not send destructive vibrations through your wind turbine

Without blades, your wind turbine can't extract any power from the wind. There are many ways to make wind turbine blades, PVC pipe, foam, or fiberglass just to name a few. Each different material allows for different types of shapes to be built. PVC pipe is the least flexible material, and fiberglass has the most flexibility.

Making a wind powered generator from scrap materials is very rewarding and empowering. Most of the tools and materials that you will need can be found in your local hardware shop or junk pile. We highly recommend you search your local dump and/or junkyards for the materials required. If you live in a city, do a search on freecycle.org for salvaged parts.

PVC Wind Turbine Blades are becoming more and more common for homemade domestic wind turbines. The raw material, PVC pipe, is easy to find, relatively cheap, easy to work with, and performance is more than acceptable for a small basic wind turbine generator. PVC wind turbine blades can simply be bolted onto a Permanent Magnet Alternator or suitable Stepper Motor and you already have a basic wind turbine.

If you decide to use foam, you will be able to take advantage of a light, rigid material that can be shaped into many different profiles. Cut foam wind turbine blades will allow you to choose a specific airfoil shape as well as a planform of your blades to increase the efficiency of your turbine. To start creating your foam blades, you'll first need to know the diameter of your turbine disc and then the length of each blade.

To learn more about wind turbine blades, please visit Wind Turbine Blades.