ABSTRACT
This paper presents two case studies of the repurposing projects of decommissioned wind tur- bine blades in architectural and structural engineering applications conducted under a multinational research project is entitled “Re-Wind” (www.re-wind.info) that was funded by the US-Ireland Tripartite program. The group has worked closely together in the Re-Wind Network over the past five years to conduct research on the topic of repurposing of decommissioned FRP wind turbine blades. Repurposing is defined by the Re- Wind team as the reverse engineering, redesigning and remanufacturing of a wind blade that has reached the end of its life on a turbine and taken out of service and then reused as a load-bearing structural element in a new structure (e.g., bridge, transmission pole, sound barrier, sea-wall, shelter). Further repurposing examples are provided in a publicly available Re-Wind Design Catalog. The Re-Wind Network was the first group to develop practical methods and design procedures to make these new “second-life” structures. The Network has developed design and construction details for two full-size prototype demonstration structures – a pedes- trian bridge constructed in Cork, Ireland in January 2022 and a transmission pole to be constructed at the Smoky Hills Wind Farm in Lincoln and Ellsworth Counties, in Kansas, USA in the late 2022. The paper pro- vides details on the planning, design, analysis, testing and construction of these two demonstration projects.
