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Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

Neighbor reported a banging sound. Sounds like an overspeed problem. If the blades are not 'feathered' on windy days, they will catch so much wind that it is a toss-up as to whether the blades & hub fail, or the tower buckles.

RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

No observed troubles with the others it seems. I am sure the engineers will be checking them out.

RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

That does look like an overspeed failure. I saw one similar to it in Germany years ago. They really come unglued in spectacular fashion.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

They're glued together? No wonder they fail!

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)


RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

Well, technically, yes!!! At least the blades are, anyway (composite) ponder

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

The rotor with the blades have quite large inertia moment of a mass. So when rotor have broken such reason tries to stop the blades rotating. Then there is growing up very large rotating moment of inertia to column of the wind turbine. And there is not required the hi speed of the blades that to make broken column as a match. It is enough to stop quickly the rotor.

RE: Wind turbine collapse in Ireland

As the blades flail about (and fail about) if they clip the tower, the impact damage can dent (distort) the tower walls enough to cause that to also fall down under the eccentric rotor and hub loads. The blades on almost all new turbines are aimed to be upwind of the tower, so normal wind forces push them back towards the tower. An overspeed or blade failure throws them in the wrong direction to save the tower.

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