The next phase of the MAXBlade Project recently kicked off in Scotland with a meeting to determine the parameters for the advanced structural blade testing of Orbital Marine Power’s (Orbital) next generation tidal turbine blades at The University of Edinburgh’s FastBlade facility in Rosyth.
The meeting, hosted by project partners Orbital Marine Power (Orbital) and FastBlade, included Orthotropic Engineering and Aerotrope, both entities with expertise in composite materials and blade design. They will be bringing their industry knowledge to the project consortium and will contribute to making Orbital’s tidal blades larger, lower cost and more reliable.
Also discussed was the logistical plan for increasing the length of the turbine blades from 10 to 13 metres – making them the longest of their kind in the world. Doing this will feasibly have the single greatest impact on reducing the cost of tidal energy in the future.
Next steps include the manufacture of the blades followed by fatigue testing on FastBlade’s test frame to ensure reliability and performance. This will be an important milestone for all project partners as it will be the largest tidal blades ever to be tested.
