A lot of wind farms are nearing the end of their lifespan, and the residue generated by their wind turbine blades demands urgent attention. This
study suggests a novel recycling process, where dismantled wind turbine blades
are transformed into a raw material for concrete production. The process involves a pretreatment of raw cutting of the blade walls, without separating the
components, crushing, and sieving. This results in a waste material that has
been called Raw-Crushed Wind-Turbine Blade (RCWTB). In this research, the
main characterizations of the residue were studied, as well as the potential of
their components to serve as both fibers and aggregates in concrete. Moreover,
to achieve suitable workability, a customized mixture design and a mixing procedure in five stages were developed for concrete containing up to 6%
RCWTB. The main preliminary outcomes include that the addition of RCWTB
improved flexural strength of concrete and reduced its carbon footprint. Although a slight decrease in compressive strength was observed, the results were
suitable for construction purposes and this initial approach seems to provide a
viable solution for recycling wind turbine blades.
