Jon Excell

FASTBLADE composite structures test facility takes shape at Rosyth

News

Next month (July 2020) will see the start of major engineering works on FASTBLADE, a state-of-the-art composite testing facility being built by engineering giant Babcock International and the University of Edinburgh.

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)  and the University of Edinburgh, the £4.1m facility - based at Babcock’s Rosyth site near Edinburgh - will use cutting edge digital and hydraulic technology to assess the performance of composite structures used in industries such as tidal energy, marine, transport, nuclear and aerospace.

Babcock’s engineering and technology director Neil Young told The Engineer that the facility – which is expected to be up and running next year (2021) will initially be used for lifetime fatigue testing of renewable energy tidal turbine blades.

Because of the density of water, and the turbulent forces that they are exposed to, these turbine blades are particularly challenging from an engineering point of view. Young said that the new facility will enable engineers to test and validate new blade designs by cycling them through the equivalent of an entire 20-year design life in just 3 months.

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