Optimization of microwire/glass-fibre reinforced polymer composites for wind turbine application

We here report a comprehensive study of glass-fibre reinforced polymers (GFRP) incorporating ferromagnetic microwires for microwave absorption applications. With wire addition, a remarkable dependence of microwave absorption performance appears on the local properties of wires such as wire geometry and the mesostructure such as inter-wire spacing, as well as the embedded depth of the wires layer. The impact testing further demonstrates that the metallic microwires can to some extent improve the impact performance. Based on both the absorption and impact behavior, we propose an optimized design of the microwire/GFRP composites to achieve simultaneous best possible absorption and impact performance for multifunctional applications in aeronautical structures and wind turbines.