Sandia has developed new technology and reduced this time to three months through partnerships with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a leader in 3D printing, and TPI Composites, a leading wind turbine blade manufacturer in the United States. Sandia used 3D printing technology to directly print digital design solutions into molds, shortening the time of more than a year. Through the above technology, designers can improve the anti-risk ability of the technology through trial design and accelerate the innovation of wind technology.

In recent years, Sandia National Laboratories have designed a variety of more efficient wind turbines that capture wind energy more efficiently than existing technologies, thereby reducing the cost of renewable energy. It is reported that the prototype manufacturing is a difficult problem. It takes 16 months to produce a labor-intensive customized mold before the production and testing of each type of blade.

During the cooperation process, Sandia dominated the design of the blade, including evaluating the feasibility of using 3D printing; TPI consulted the mechanical parameters and carried out the structural design and computer-aided design geometry required to successfully manufacture the mold; Oak Ridge was short The mold was printed in several parts during the time, and the assembly of the blade mold and the manufacture of the blade were carried out at the TPI factory.