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Automated Shop-Floor Measurement in Large Offshore Structures
Offshore wind structures are growing in scale and geometric complexity, while tolerances are tightening across nacelles, blades, towers, transition pieces, and foundations. In serial production environments, maintaining (sub)millimetre accuracy on components exceeding 100 metres in length is no longer simply a quality control requirement; it is also an imperative determinant of cost, safety and performance. Traditional metrology approaches struggle to keep pace with these demands, particularly on dynamic shop floors, where throughput, repeatability and operator safety are critical.
By Geert Creemers and Jef Cambré, Argon Measuring Solutions, Belgium
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Floating Offshore Wind Platform Strengthening Transparent Seabird Impact Assessment
Floating offshore wind is not just about clean megawatts; it is also a unique opportunity to understand how wildlife and renewable infrastructure share space. Around the DemoSATH floating platform off the Basque coast, Saitec Offshore Technologies has turned energy production into a living laboratory: DemoSATH Lab. While this article focuses on birds, one of the most sensitive and high-priority environmental lines of work, DemoSATH Lab brings together a wider monitoring programme, including underwater noise, marine fauna interactions, and carbon-footprint assessment, among others. Together with RWE and the Kansai Electric Power Corporation, Saitec is pioneering new ways to monitor birds in the Mundaka-Cabo de Ogoño Special Protection Area for Birds. After two years combining field ornithology, automated detection, and continuous CCTV, DemoSATH Lab is now advancing with artificial intelligence (AI) to improve detection, recognise ringed individuals, and quantify collisions using blade-facing cameras, maximising knowledge, transparency and biodiversity protection.
By Ane Ugena Ispizua, Javier Del Real Tuñón and Enrique Garea García, Saitec, Spain
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Reaction Washers to Improve Work Safety and Preload Accuracy with Powered Torque Tools
Bolted joints in wind turbines are subjected to extreme loads due to high forces in axial and transversal directions, for example in rotor blades, turbines and flange connections in the towers. Because the loads are dynamic, the bolted joints are endangered by fatigue failure and self-loosening throughout their entire service life. Consequently, correct bolt dimensioning analysis results in bolted joints with high preloads and large diameters. But even if the preload is accurately calculated it must be reliably and safely applied during assembly using high tightening torques. High preload bolts with diameters of M24 and larger can no longer be tightened manually with a handheld torque wrench. Instead, they require powered torque tools (hydraulic, electric or battery-operated) along with reaction arm support structures to manage the high reaction forces. Finally, the required preload must be maintained during operation where alternating loads, especially in the transversal direction caused by wind loads, vibrations from the rotor, etc., can lead to self-loosening.
By Tobias Hübing, Head of Laboratory, Heico Group, Germany
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Virtual Sensors Extend Structural Health Monitoring Across the Entire Wind Farm
Asset integrity management encompasses comprehensive approaches to ensuring the structural integrity, reliability and longevity of offshore wind turbines and foundations. This framework integrates monitoring, inspection, maintenance and risk management strategies. In the bottom-fixed wind sector, current best practices typically involve deploying structural health monitoring (SHM) systems on only a fraction of turbines within a farm (typically 10%), while the others receive minimal or no instrumentation. SHM systems use sensors such as strain gauges and accelerometers, with data analysed either continuously or periodically to evaluate the condition of structural components. However, this approach faces two key challenges: 1) the substantial initial and operational costs of implementing and maintaining SHM systems and 2) the limited sensor coverage, both in terms of the number of turbines monitored across a farm and the number of measurement points per turbine.
By Ambroise Cadoret, Fabien Caleyron and Vincent Le Corre, GreenWITS, France
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Handling and Storage: Damage Risks and Mitigation Measures
The journey that a wind turbine blade takes from the factory to the turbine carries a risk of structural damage to the blade. From its work with multiple industry stakeholders, DNV has observed and investigated damage to, and the failure of, blades during the journey. Even relatively minor damage from transportation, handling or storage can worsen during operation. Such damage may result in the need for repair or, in severe cases, blade failure. Damage observed by DNV from transportation, handling and storage has ranged in severity from scratches to the blade coating where support fixtures made contact with the blade to damage to primary structural members of the blade, requiring replacement of the blade. Understanding these risks and how to mitigate them is important for protecting project investments and maximising blade durability.
By Matthew Malkin, Principal Engineer, DNV, USA
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Challenges in Blade Bearing Operation
In recent years, the wind energy industry has faced a growing number of challenges related to the condition and durability of blade bearings. These critical components, which connect the rotor blades to the hub of a wind turbine, are exposed to highly dynamic loads during operation. Increasingly, operators and service providers have observed cracks, raceway damage and premature wear across various manufacturers and turbine models, including power classes between 2 and 8MW onshore and offshore. As turbines become older and are subjected to higher operational stresses, the mechanical loads acting on the blade bearings become more complex and variable. This accelerates fatigue processes and increases the risk of unexpected bearing failures.
By Moritz Hemmerlein and Hélène Guillerm, eolotec, Germany
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Timber Hybrid Towers for Wind Turbines
The demand for taller towers for wind turbines has been growing steadily for years. As tower heights increase so do the requirements for structural design and material efficiency. Conventional tower construction methods are increasingly reaching their technical and economic limits. Could timber hybrid towers be a suitable alternative to meet the increasing static requirements while enabling more efficient use of materials?
By Werner Mussnig and Roman Braun, Hasslacher Green Tower, Austria
