Design strategies for composites in a Circular Economy
Oct 2017 - ongoing
How to design products containing composite materials for a Circular Economy?
Composite materials are used for many product types. For example in car components, wind turbine blades and even electric appliances like powertools. These materials provide opportunities as well as challenges for use in a Circular Economy. Due to their increased stiffness, less materials can be used. And a product can last longer, as composites do not suffer from fatigue or corrosion like metals do. However, closing the loop is difficult, in particular for thermosets.
Students have explored recovery opportunities for composites in graduation and research projects. In these projects, knowledge on design, materials, user interaction and recycling technology was combined to find new applications.
The goal is to learn from these projects how we should design those composite products in the first place, to enable valuable recovery in a circular economy. Later, we will apply these newly developed design strategies to redesign an existing composite product.
Here you can find some of the projects conducted by the students:
Reuse of wind turbine blades in a slow traffic bridge – By Stijn Speksnijder
A valuable application for shredded composite material from wind turbine blades – By Tjits Tuinhof
Recycling wind turbine blades: pyrolysis of glass fibre reinforced composites – By Julia Koelega
Recycling of composite materials – By Alma van Oudheusden
Participants
Jelle Joustra – PhD researcher
Ruud Balkenende – Promotor
Bas Flipsen – Daily supervisor