FRAUNHOFER IWES-BLADE MAKER

BLADE MAKER – IWES

Demo Center

Construction of a Demo machine inside the facilities of IWES in Bremerhaven, Germany.

EEW-PROTEC has installed a CNC-controlled production cell with 2 cooperating 6-axis gantries (5 x 2 x 25 m) with a payload of 400Kg each for end-effectors, which has been designed for the following tasks:

blade molds with flat back profiles and integrated sensors (20 m section of a 40 m blade)
precut center
roving-impregnation and -placement technology
automated placement of large precuts and preforms
automated in-situ production of core materials
direct-infusion equipment
automated bonding application and
surface finishing system

A heavy-duty platform with a load capacity of 4 tons was installed for material transport during the process. The platform can optionally be electrically connected to one of the two portals and then follows the X-axis movement of the portal fully automatically.

Wind Blades

The purpose of the Center es to offer a technology-platform where all Windenergy related tecnologies can be tested on real conditions.

This includes not only the product itself but also the necessary manufacturing processes:

– Industrial hard – and software concepts

– Development and validation

– Test specimens and structures

25 metres

Length

400 Kg

Payload

5 metres

Width

2 metres

Hight

2,5 m/s

Traverse speed

Lightweight and Speed

Both gantries, thanks to EEW-PROTEC lightweight construction are able to operate at speeds of 2.5m/s.

Despite this speed, the precision is still what is expected for a CNC machine, below 0.1mm.