HBK, along with experts in the fields of wind turbine research and development, manufacturing, energy provision and testing, are collaborating on a major, three-year, research project, funded by the Danish Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Programme (EUDP).

Challenge

In addition to keeping up with the fast pace of technology, wind turbine manufacturers, like all manufacturers, are under pressure to deliver continuous innovation, while constantly facing the engineering challenges of shorter product development cycles and reduced costs – all without compromising the highest standards of quality, reliability and safety.

One way of achieving this is by collaborating with external partners. Collaboration not only provides access to technological resources, rare skills and competencies but also instigates agility and efficiency, potentially shortening time to market for new products. Blatigue-2 is one such collaboration.

Benefit to customer

The project, BLATIGUE-2: Fast, Smart and Efficient Fatigue Testing of Large Wind Turbine Blades, is led by the Danish Technical University (DTU), involves ten partners and is a follow up to Blatigue-1 where a fatigue test method – better than current standard tests – was developed along with an exciter that could actually test wind turbine blades.

That initial work continues with Blatigue-2, where the exciter and software will be combined to make a smart exciter solution that will increase the quality of blade testing, not only reducing unplanned blade repairs by an estimated 10% but also significantly reducing the time to market for new blade designs.

Project Manager Kim Branner from DTU Wind explains, “The project’s vision is to create a fast, smart method to perform tests. We will develop new tools and software, which the industry needs. When the tests of the blades are improved, fewer errors will occur, they will become more reliable, and this will also increase the wind energy’s competitiveness.”

The project focuses on developing and demonstrating four technologies, which are key parts of the overall solution. These technologies will be commercialized and brought to the market by four of the partners. HBK’s representative is Senior Research Engineer, Dmitri Tcherniak, who is responsible for developing virtual sensing algorithms for the project.

You can read more here: Blatigue for HBK World - HBK