---
title: "Concordia researchers 4D print wind turbine blades without molds"
url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/concordia-researchers-4d-print-wind-turbine-blades-without-molds/
date: 2026-07-16
modified: 2026-07-16
lang: en
author: "Joseph Caron-Dawe"
description: "Researchers at Concordia University have developed a manufacturing method that produces curved blades for vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) from flat carbon-fiber composite panels, removing the need for the complex molds..."
categories:
  - "4D Printing"
  - "AM Research"
  - "Composites"
tags:
  - "future"
image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Concordia-4D-printed-wind-turbine-blades-01-640x427.jpg
word_count: 288
---

# Concordia researchers 4D print wind turbine blades without molds

[Researchers at Concordia University](https://www.voxelmatters.com/fast-and-precise-microdevice-production-enabled-by-sound-driven-3d-printing/) have developed a manufacturing method that produces curved blades for vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) from flat carbon-fiber composite panels, removing the need for the complex molds typically used to shape them. The technique, [described as 4D printing of composites](https://www.voxelmatters.com/researchers-develop-degradable-4d-printed-actuators-using-petg-and-pva/), was developed by PhD candidate Emad Fakhimi and Suong Van Hoa, professor at the Concordia Center for Composites.

VAWTs are increasingly installed on buildings and in urban settings, but their curved blades are conventionally produced using specialized forming processes that rely on complex molds. Those molds add cost, manufacturing time and weight to the finished blade, according to the university.

![Concordia researchers 4D print wind turbine blades without molds](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Concordia-4D-printed-wind-turbine-blades-03-239x340.jpg)

## An inverse approach to layup design

To avoid the mold-based process, the researchers built what they described as a first-of-its-kind “inverse” design procedure. Conventional composite design starts with a chosen layup, the arrangement and orientation of carbon-fiber layers, and observes the shape that results. 

Fakhimi and Van Hoa's method worked in the opposite direction, starting from the desired blade geometry and calculating backward to determine how the layers needed to be arranged and oriented to produce it.

During manufacturing, flat carbon or epoxy laminates were cured and then deformed into the target curved shape as they cooled, a result of differences in material properties engineered across the layers.

## Lighter blades that spin faster

The resulting composite blades closely matched the shape of commercial aluminum turbine blades while weighing about 80% less, the researchers reported. In laboratory testing, turbines fitted with the composite blades rotated faster than those fitted with aluminum blades.

The researchers said the approach could lower manufacturing costs and broaden the use of lightweight composite structures in renewable energy systems and other engineering applications. The work was [published in the journal *Polymer Composites*](https://4spepublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pc.70998?af=R).