All of the commercially available wind turbine blade designs from the largest wind turbine OEM's use a shell constructed from two separate halves, with one or more shear webs positioned between the two halves to form an "I-beam" structure and provide the required mechanical strength.

During the blade assembly process, the shear web(s) are transported to the blade halves using a large, product specific lifting device, known as a "Shear Web Positioner". This lifting device is used to ensure the shear webs location inside the blade is within the ±2mm positioning tolerance as the position of the webs are critical to the performance of the blade. They can cost anywhere in the range of £400,000 to £1,400,000, contain over 30 tonnes of steel and cannot be easily recycled or reused.

As offshore wind energy becomes critical to meeting the targets stipulated in the Paris Agreement, DFS have identified a market trend for increasing blade length, especially for the 15MW designs expected to be installed over the next decade. This project will explore multiple methods of future-proofing the shear web positioning process for these large offshore wind blade designs.