Wind Turbine Blades From Plastic Pipe

ABS or PVC* blades are an excellent, quick, light, cheap and very easy. So how do you make them?

Plastic pipe comes in various grades, sizes and materials, usually PVC or ABS.

As a guide typical UK prices 2008 (per metre) are as follows:

4" pipe ABS class C P/E 511 110 £36.63/m

4" GF ABS CL. C Pipe 169 018 042 £36.60 -------- 6" £72.40-------- 6" D pipe £90.22

8" ABS class C 6M P/E £115.64

8" GF ABS CL. C Pipe £130.24

110mm 10bar PVC Pipe P/E £17.44 ---- 140mm £25.60-----160mm £36.96-----200mm £64.22------- 16 bar is more expensive

4" EFFAST PVC Pipe CL E P/E £25.51----- 6" £57.46 --- C version cheaper

There is also HEP Class PVC Pipe with sizes up to 12", prices similar to ABS (or more)

PVC vent pipe is very cheap but probably not up to it

* The disadvantage of PVC pipe is that it degrades in sunlight and becomes brittle, not good in a wind generator spinning at high speed. This can be generally avoided with a coat of suitable paint.

Choose the right size.

The pipe should have a diameter about 1/5 as it is long. eg. if you have 500mm blades the pvc pipe should have a diameter of 100mm. One length of pipe can can make four blades.

So here is the pipe.

Quarter the pipe.

First of all you need to quarter the pipe. Now drawing straight line and measuring on round surfaces is hard, so the best method is to get a large sheet of paper. If you wrap the sheet tightly around the pipe you get a straight line round the pipe. you can then use a pencil or marker against this edge to get a straight line all of the way round the pipe

With the paper wrapped round the pipe you can then mark the circumference. Fold the paper in half and mark half way round the pipe. Then in half again to get quarters of the pipes.

With these methods you should be able to draw good straight lines all over the pipe dividing it lengthways into quarters.

Use a saw saw down the pipe to cut it in half. Like so.

And then again into quarters.

Shape each quarter

Now for each of our four quarters we want to do two things

1) Cut out a rectangle from the base about 5 cms in, so we can easily attach it to whatever we want to. Before you do the cut, drill a hole in the corner to improve the structural integrity of the material. Once the hole is drilled cut the rectangles out being careful not to cut past the hole.

2) Cut from the high tip of the base to the point.

For best results the PVC blades can be profiled as per the image here.

The image shows 4 stations.

More pictures, this time using ABS pipe: