Gurit - Unlimited blade works

From plugs and moulds to advanced composite materials, tooling equipment and repair solutions, Gurit offers a full range of solutions to meet the ever-increasing needs of wind turbine blade manufacturers.

Gurit is the leading global supplier of advanced composite materials, tooling equipment and finished parts. More than 30 years' experience in the application of composites across various market sectors combined with a unique technical approach enables Gurit to offer a complete composite solution. With production sites and offices in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Ecuador, Brazil, India and China, Gurit is uniquely positioned to serve global growth markets,

High-quality custom moulds

Wind turbine blade manufacturers are facing enormous challenges; the longest blades today weigh in excess of 20t and are more than 80m long. New materials and tooling solutions were needed to keep the blades as light as possible while maximising their strength, stiffness and durability. Gurit has helped make wind energy a technical and commercial success story by helping to decrease manufacturing costs and enhance the efficiency of wind power installations.

Gurit is the leading manufacturer of plugs and moulds for wind turbine blades. With more than 400 skilled employees dedicated to the design, engineering, manufacture and service of composite tooling as well as state-of-the-art production halls suitable to build moulds longer than 90m, Gurit is a prime engineering and sourcing partner for high-quality moulds built to customer specifications in short lead times and at very competitive prices.

Today, its scope of activity reaches beyond wind turbine blade moulds, specialising also in a complete line of accessory products such as scaffolding, platforms, lifting and setting devices, universal blade and tower transport devices, and blade turning systems.

Keep blades running

Gurit is unique in covering both infusion and prepreg blade technology, and supplying all the relevant advanced composite materials:

• SPRINT™ prepregs: To overcome the problem of entrapped air between plies in thick (>3mm) laminates and decrease manufacturing times, Gurit has patented SPRINT pre-impregnated materials (prepregs) that allow high-quality composite components with high mechanical properties and very low void content to be produced rapidly and economically. SPRINT prepregs consist of a resin film sandwiched between two dry fibre layers. Once placed in the mould, vacuum is pulled to extract the air from the laminate before heat is applied to allow the resin to soften, impregnate the dry fibre layers and then cure.
• Structural cores: Gurit supplies a wide range of structural cores, from PVC, SAN and PET to balsa. The main purpose of the core in the sandwich laminate is to create stiffness while adding as little weight as possible. Due to the changing loading profile of the shell of a wind blade from the root to the tip, the requirements for core properties change as well. Balsa is widely used in the root section due to its very high shear-resistance, while PVC or SAN cores are commonly used in the outboard regions of wind blades.
• Adhesives: Gurit offers high-performance adhesives designed for bonding large structures. Formulations of these cost-effective systems give higher thermal performance and allow faster curing, making these adhesives ideal for bonding large composite structures where minimising cure times and increasing productivity is of value.

To ensure the long-term performance of the blades, Gurit has also developed repair solutions that include a wet laminating range consisting of standard laminating products, as well as systems with higher strengths and operating temperatures. A complete range of hardeners and modifiers gives a wide variety of working times, viscosities and thixotropy.

Gurit also offers a fresh and novel approach to the manufacture, maintenance and repair of today's wind turbine blades - using UV light from specially designed lamp equipment to achieve a full cure in just a few minutes.