Dutch InfraBlades tests retired wind turbine blades for bridge construction

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 3, Dutch company InfraBlades confirmed that it had received three retired blades from a recently dismantled wind turbine and transported them to Bedrijvenpark De Boezem in Pijnacker for storage and structural testing. These glass fiber-reinforced composite blades will later be used in a pedestrian bridge, with two of the blades planned to serve as the bridge's main load-bearing beams, rather than being shredded and processed as recycled raw materials.

InfraBlades is currently setting up test equipment on site and plans to select one of the three blades for a large-scale bending test to obtain data on the blade's residual stiffness, strength, and load-bearing behavior when used as a bridge structural beam. The company is also collaborating with Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and GROW to develop blade inspection and testing methods, with the goal of establishing a repeatable inspection procedure to determine whether different retired blades can continue to bear infrastructure structural loads.

The Pijnacker-Nootdorp project has already entered the implementation preparation phase. InfraBlades and the Pijnacker-Nootdorp municipality signed a letter of intent earlier this year to build a circular-economy bridge at the De Boezem industrial park. With the arrival of the blades and the launch of structural testing, the project has now advanced from the planning and partnership stage to physical blade verification. The project plans to build a pedestrian bridge near the test site, with two inspected retired wind turbine blades forming the main load-bearing structure.

The company is also advancing another wind turbine blade bridge project in Rotterdam. InfraBlades' 2026 design catalog shows that its technical solutions cover single-blade bridges, multi-blade composite structures, and multi-span bridges, applicable to pedestrian bridges, bicycle bridges, and certain road bridges. In May of this year, the city of Rotterdam also received an environmental permit application for a pedestrian Boezembrug in Nieuw Kralingen, involving bridge construction activities at Drs. P-kade 2.

InfraBlades' technical approach preserves the original glass fiber-reinforced composite structure and geometry of the wind turbine blades, directly using retired blades as engineering components. The company's stated goal for its solutions is to achieve a service life of up to approximately 100 years for structures used in infrastructure after inspection, while reducing subsequent maintenance requirements. At present, this performance still needs to be verified through structural inspection, load testing, and engineering design specific to each blade.