• Kale, Sa
• Nikhade, Sd
• Gaval, Vr
• Garmode, Rk

Abstract

Best material selection among various possible materials for small wind turbine blades is a vital task as it needs to meet the different selection criteria. This research paper is a comprehensive work that includes identification of ten possible better materials, finding ten all-encompassing material selection criteria and the use of four suitable mathematical techniques to get the appropriate results. The identified materials are the appropriate combinations of metal, plastics, natural materials and hybrid natural-synthetic materials. The quantitative and qualitative data used are collected from experts, manufacturers, testing laboratories and academic researchers. The three different criteria weights are calculated from the analytic hierarchy process, entropy weight method and the average of these two methods. These weights are used in simple additive weighting method, weighted product method, technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method and R-method to get the rankings of the materials. A good, acceptable similarity is observed for first three materials rankings. Epoxy based hybrid cotton-glass fiber reinforced plastic is observed as an evolving best compromised material for small wind turbine blades.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• polymer
• glass
• glass