Atlanta used a retired 49-foot wind-turbine blade as a footbridge to solve a creek-access problem; the result transformed the park by opening nearly 2 acres of previously unreachable green space to visitors

Atlanta wind turbine blade bridge: A retired wind-turbine blade has found an unexpected second life in an Atlanta park. At Beaverbrook Park, a section of a 49-foot blade now sits beneath a footbridge, helping people cross a creek that once blocked access to part of the park, as per a report.

The blade came from a wind farm in Colorado, about 1,000 miles away. It weighs close to 7,000 pounds and was cut, laid on its side, bolted into concrete abutments and covered with a bridge deck.

From above, the crossing looks like an ordinary footbridge. From the creek bed, the curved, aerodynamic shape of the old turbine blade is much easier to spot.


The project also solved a practical problem for the park. Roughly two acres of green space were on the other side of the creek and could not be reached on foot.

Jud Ready of Georgia Tech described the project as opening access to about two acres that were previously inaccessible because of the creek, as per The Pulse report.

Students worked on the engineering, while Russell Gentry, an architecture professor involved in the project, called the Atlanta crossing the first of its kind in America.

The blade was already built to handle heavy loads

The reason the unusual material can work as a bridge support comes down to the way wind-turbine blades are made.

A turbine blade is a cantilever beam engineered to hold its own weight in the air and take bending loads in different weather conditions for two or three decades without cracking.

That existing structure can be retained when a blade is retired.

Instead of shredding the blade for cement powder, burning it for fuel or processing it to recover the glass fiber, engineers can keep its shape and use it as a beam.

In Atlanta, the process involved cutting the blade, lifting it into position and bolting it into place.

Engineers had to work out what was inside

Turning an old blade into a bridge was not simply a matter of reusing a piece of strong material.

The internal layup of a blade can be proprietary, and after 20 years in the field, the manufacturer may no longer exist. Engineers therefore had to work backwards to understand how the material would behave.

They burned sections in a furnace so the resin could be removed and the glass weighed. Samples were then pulled, crushed and bent in four-point tests to determine what the material would do.

Software developed for the project used those measurements to produce usable engineering values because no datasheet was available.

The researchers also tested a completed bridge under heavy loads.

In Draperstown, Northern Ireland, a 23-foot span made from two turbine blades was loaded with 34 concrete blocks weighing close to 78,000 pounds.

Kenny McDonald of Queen's University Belfast pointed out that the bridge was designed to avoid failures and that the test resulted in no tearing or failure, as per The Pulse report.

The Atlanta bridge is the third

The Beaverbrook Park crossing is the third of these bridges and the first outside Europe.

The first was installed on a greenway in County Cork, Ireland, in January 2022. That bridge spans about 16 feet and uses two blades that once turned on small turbines.

The team counted a 20% reduction in carbon compared with the steel girders the bridge replaced.

The work involves Georgia Tech and universities in Ireland, with funding on the American side from the National Science Foundation.

It is not a solution for every retired blade

There is a clear limit to the idea. One footbridge uses one blade, while the number of turbine blades reaching the end of their working lives is far greater.

Angela Nagle, a mechanical engineer who researched the problem and cofounded the company behind the bridges, said "After 20 to 30 years, they need to be replaced and nothing can be done with the blades except to landfill or incinerate them," as quoted by The Pulse.

The same group has also tested a power-transmission pole made from an old turbine blade. That application could use more blades because the United States needs many transmission poles, but the pole remains a prototype.