The project
The ThermoTide project will investigate new sustainable tidal blade materials and manufacturing routes that are needed to meet mechanical fatigue and seawater erosion resistance requirements, facilitate low-cost manufacturing, installation and operation and enable maintenance, repair, recycling and reuse of tidal turbine blades. The proposed thermoplastic materials are processed rapidly at room temperature and can enable more effective assembly techniques such as automated thermal welding or novel, room-temperature cold infusion welding. Successful implementation of this novel thermoplastic composite technology in the tidal sector will reduce the manufacturing, maintenance and life cycle cost of blades and initiate a circular economy in this sector, leading to reductions in LCoE via reduced OPEX and CAPEX. This project will develop an understanding of the processing, mechanical performance, surface erosion, welding, effective repair and recycling of the new sustainable materials. Subsequent steps will be to design, manufacture and test a full-scale tidal blade from recyclable thermoplastic composites.
Dr Dipa Roy - Principal Investigator
Dr. Dipa Roy joined School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, in January 2017 as Lecturer in Composite Materials and Processing. She obtained her B.Sc degree (Chemistry Honours), B.Tech and M.Tech degree in Polymer Science and Technology from University of Calcutta, India. She completed her PhD from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Jadavpur University, India, in 2002. Between 2003 and 2005 she worked as Research Associate with Government of India fellowship at IACS.
She started her job as Lecturer in the Department of Polymer Science and Technology, University of Calcutta in 2005 and continued in that position till September 2011. She received Young Scientist Award from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, in 2006 and Career Award for Young Teachers from All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Government of India, in 2007. She successfully completed seven Government of India funded research projects as Principal Investigator during this tenure. In 2011 she joined Irish Centre for Composites Research (IComp) at University of Limerick, Ireland, as Research Fellow (2011-2016). At IComp she conducted industry focused research in the area of polymer composites.
On-demand video: Supergen ORE Hub Annual Assembly 2022
Dr Dipa Roy - Senior Lecturer in Composite Materials and Processing, University of Edinburgh
