After wind and solar energy, tidal energy presents the most prominent opportunity for generating energy from renewable sources. However, due to the harsh environment that tidal turbines are deployed in, a number of design and manufacture challenges are presented to engineers. As a consequence of the harsh environment, the loadings on the turbine blades are much greater than that on wind turbine blades and, therefore, require advanced solutions to be able to survive in this environment. In order to avoid issues with corrosion, tidal turbine blades are mainly manufactured from fibre reinforced polymer composite material. As a result, the main design and manufacture challenges are related to the main structural aspects of the blade, which are the spar and root, and the connection between the blade and the turbine hub. Therefore, in this paper, a range of advanced manufacturing technologies for producing a 1 MW tidal turbine blade are developed. The main novelty in this study comes with the challenges that are overcome due to the size of the blade, resulting in thickness composite sections (> 130 mm in places), the fast changes in geometry over a short length that isn’t the case for wind blades and the required durability of the material in the marine environment. These advances aim to increase the likelihood of survival of tidal turbine blades in operation for a design life of 20 + years.

在风能和太阳能之后，潮汐能是可再生能源发电的最突出机会。然而，由于潮汐涡轮机所处的恶劣环境，给工程师带来了许多设计和制造挑战。由于恶劣的环境，涡轮叶片上的载荷远大于风力涡轮叶片上的载荷，因此需要先进的解决方案才能在这种环境中生存。为了避免腐蚀问题，潮汐涡轮叶片主要由纤维增强聚合物复合材料制成。因此，主要的设计和制造挑战与叶片的主要结构方面有关，即翼梁和根部，以及叶片和涡轮轮毂之间的连接。因此，在本文中，开发了一系列用于生产 1 兆瓦潮汐涡轮叶片的先进制造技术。本研究的主要新颖之处在于由于叶片尺寸而克服的挑战，导致复合材料部分的厚度（局部> 130 mm），几何形状在短长度内的快速变化，这不是风力叶片和材料在海洋环境中所需的耐久性。这些进步旨在提高设计寿命为 20 年以上的潮汐涡轮叶片在运行中存活的可能性。在很短的长度上几何形状的快速变化是风力叶片所不具备的，以及材料在海洋环境中所需的耐用性。这些进步旨在提高设计寿命为 20 年以上的潮汐涡轮叶片在运行中存活的可能性。在很短的长度上几何形状的快速变化是风力叶片所不具备的，以及材料在海洋环境中所需的耐用性。这些进步旨在提高设计寿命为 20 年以上的潮汐涡轮叶片在运行中存活的可能性。