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SAERTEX (Saerbeck, Germany) announces its contribution to the production of a prototype carbon fiber spar cap made using vacuum infusion technology.

The 87.5-meter, 800-millimeter diameter spar cap, said by SAERTEX to be the longest ever produced, was completed in April by a wind turbine blade manufacturer in China. The spar cap, designed by WINDnovation Engineering Solutions (Berlin, Germany), is made of carbon fiber to reduce the part’s weight and achieve higher stiffness, which is essential for rotor blades of such extreme length.

 

The carbon fiber used for the part was SAERTEXs infusion-optimized unidirectional, 618-gsm non-crimp carbon fiber fabric, which features increased z-permeability and was specially developed for the infusion of thick lay-ups. The resin system used was CTP AM’s (Duisburg, Germany) 3325 A/B epoxy resin with optimized viscosity and extended pot-life.

The spar cap was infused in VAP technology with Composyst’s (Hurlach, Germany) VAP membrane CS/E which enables degassing of the resin during the entire infusion and eases resin distribution throughout the entire part, as well as control of the resin content in the part. The infusion process is said to have taken less than two hours.