- Category: Articles
- Category: Articles
- Category: Articles
Wind farms are known to be particularly exposed during thunderstorms and workers on site are prone to lightning strikes. Thunderstorm warning systems are widely used to prevent lightning related accidents and are already employed in several sectors such as industry, utility networks, leisure activities, transport and civil protection. This article outlines how lightning locating systems can provide an early warning, taking into account the needs of the operators to be notified with a sufficient lead time to apply safety procedures.
By Stéphane Schmitt, Product Manager and Head of Marketing, Meteorage, France
- Category: Articles
New artificial intelligence (AI) based damage discovery technology can assist O&M organisations to detect defects and critical blade conditions through automated analysis of inspection data. Recent core enhancements in AI combined with high performance cloud-based platforms process inspection data in near real time and provide higher quality results at a lower cost when compared with human-based detection and analysis.
By Whitney Weller and Kevin Wells, AirFusion, USA
- Category: Articles
Making Wind Energy Greener by Making the Turbines Themselves Recyclable
Although fields of spinning wind turbines are a renewable source of energy, a challenge to wind energy production is the energy used to create the turbine and make the 150-foot-wide fibreglass turbines strong and durable. Additionally, when the turbines wear out after 20 or 25 years, only part of the material can be recycled. Therefore, wind turbine production is an ideal project for the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI), a 160+ member, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and US Department of Energy driven consortium committed to increasing domestic production capacity and manufacturing jobs across the US composites industry. IACMI’s projects incorporate industry sectors including improving the composite materials used in the manufacturing of wind turbines, cars, compressed gas storage tanks and a number of other products such as airplanes and sporting goods.
By Liz Entman, Vanderbilt University and Emily King, Hannah Jay, and Robin Pate ,IACMI – The Composites Institute, USA
- Category: Articles
Materials and method to reduce the radar cross section of wind turbines
Reduction of the radar cross section is an important aspect when planning a modern wind power plant. In the European Union the building permits for more than 20GW of wind power plants are rejected till the end of 2011 because of interference with civil and military radars. This equates to an estimated value in 2011 of more than € 30 billion.
By Jari Jekkonen, Veijo Kangas, Pasi Moilanen and Marko Luukkainen, Morphona, Finland
- Category: Articles
SeaVision, Three-Dimensional Underwater Laser Imaging System
In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) imaging sensors have increased in popularity as a tool for surface-based structural integrity assessment. These sensors provide 3D volumetric information that can be compared against baseline models for the detection of structural defects. Kraken’s SeaVision is a subsea high resolution full colour laser imaging sensor that transfers these capabilities to the subsea domain. With the deployment of offshore wind set to almost triple in the next 10 years, the need for innovative and low-risk solutions to inspect assets is crucial. Traditional inspection regimes need to be enriched with full 3D digitalisation of the inspected subsea structure. Cloud enabled four-dimensional (4D) data analytics, which track the development of the asset over time, are a step forward towards more cost-effective subsea asset management.
By Patrick Merz Paranhos and Jakob Schwendner, Kraken Robotik, Germany