• Shashidhar A.L
• Basavaroodh B.A.
• Apsarraj A.D
• Shashir S.K

The increase in global demand for energy and environmental concerns has made a shift to renewable energy sources. Wind turbines blades are usually made up of composite material. The latest trend of designing and manufacturing of blade are through designing software and Additive Manufacturing Technique. Blade design softwares like QBLADE have given the opportunities to enhance the design capabilities and development of more efficient blades that can also reduce cost and time considerably. Enhancement of structural properties at the root sections using wortman’s series airfoils is the primary objective. FX84-W175 section is inculcated in root section and NACA4412 for rest of the blade length. Two blade specimens of different t/c ratio are manufactured using ABS plastic by FDM 3D printing technology. The two point bending tests on UTM indicated a failure load of 6KN for the t/c 17.5% specimen and 6.5KN for the t/c 20% specimen. The same failure loads are used in the simulation. The maximum bending stress induced are 64.95MPa and 70.42MPa for t/c 17.5% and t/c 20% respectively. The feasibility of using 3D printed blades in roof-top power generation units seems to be reality in near future.

QBLADE,ABS plastic, FDM, 3D printing

"Design, Development and Testing of Wind Mill Blades using Additive Manufacturing Process", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.4, Issue 6, page no.259-262, July-2017, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1706056.pdf

"Design, Development and Testing of Wind Mill Blades using Additive Manufacturing Process", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.4, Issue 6, page no. pp259-262, July-2017, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1706056.pdf