Development of a mobile robot cell for cutting up rotor blades

Electricity generation from renewable resources is still a global growth market. Especially wind turbines provide a significant part of the electricity generation. In addition to further technological developments and rationalization in production and assembly, the dismantling and recycling of old wind turbines is gaining in importance. Due to the high logistical costs involved in transporting entire rotor blades, various processes are currently being developed to dismantle rotor blades to be scrapped directly on site. Conventional concepts are mainly based on sawing processes which may pollute the environment and endanger the health of operators with dust and vapors. In addition these processes create bulky sub-segments.The method presented in this work tries to avoid these disadvantages by using an alternative cutting method. It combines water jet cutting with the flexibility and accuracy of an industrial robot. In this paper, both the plant concept of a mobile, robot-based cutting cell and the method for automatic robot programming using real geometric data of the work piece are presented.