Predicting Designer Performance in Generating Reuse Concepts for Retired Wind-Turbine Blades by Measuring Individual Differences
Rui Jiang · TSpace (University of Toronto) · 2019
This work examines identifying reuses for wind-turbine blades that are retired when they reach the end of their technical life. Wind-turbine blades are made from fiber-composite materials, for which effective material-based recycling technologies are extremely limited. An approach to avoid or postpone recycling is to repurpose wind-turbine blades in other applications, as they should not be reused as wind-turbine blades for safety reasons. However, identifying promising reuses for wind-turbine blades is challenging due to their specific shape properties. In addition to issues of functional fixedness, wind-turbine blades are physically much larger than everyday objects with which people typically reason. Following a series of studies where students were asked to identify wind-turbine-blade reuses, a method involving perspective-taking was developed and applied. To better understand and motivate human designers, this work also incorporates psychological concepts, including Need for Closure, Regulatory Focus Theory, and Regulatory Mode Theory.