Session: 41-05 Artificial Intelligence Applied to Wind Energy
Paper Number: 153340
In-Situ Wind Turbine Blade Inspection Using Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing
Offshore and onshore wind turbine blades present significant inspection, maintenance and repair challenges arising from location, economic drivers, environment and the specific blade architecture concerned. Tasks have traditionally been undertaken by people abseiling from the tower. However, the harsh conditions associated with windy environs, along with pressures to limit downtime, have led to a range of new technologies becoming available. This paper presents results from the use of ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) measurements of sub-service blade topography arising from in-situ and static blade inspection for a range of wind turbine types. The measurements have been enabled using a hexapod robot that can accommodate the NDT scanner within its chassis and can, using pneumatic suction for the robot pedipulators, navigate the convex, concave and flexing form of in-situ wind turbine blades. The arising NDT tomographic scans provide detailed information on blade integrity, the presence or otherwise of bonding materials and local features. Measurements have confirmed the reliability of the system, methodology and, in addition to the technical feasibility, the operational benefits of undertaking measurements without the requirement for a person to be deployed on a blade. In addition to detailed measurement of sub-surface blade features, the robot systems has also demonstrated capacity to undertake functions such as lightning protection system verification.
Presenting Author: Peter Childs Imperial College London
Presenting Author Biography: Peter Childs FREng is the Professorial Lead in Engineering Design, Innovation Design Engineering Professor at Large, and was Founding Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London. His general interests include creativity, innovation, design, energy and sustainability, and robotics. He teaches multidisciplinarity and design engineering at Imperial. He is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Power and Energy and the Journal of Design for Augmented Humanity, Honorary Professor at Guangdong University of Technology and Professor of Excellence at MD-H, Germany, and Founder Director at Q-Bot Ltd and Chair and Director at BladeBUG Ltd. Prior to his current post at Imperial, he was director of the Rolls-Royce supported University Technology Centre for Aero-Thermal Systems, director of InQbate and professor at the University of Sussex.
Authors:
Chris Cieslak BladeBUG LtdStacey Rivers BladeBUG Ltd
Peter Childs Imperial College London
In-Situ Wind Turbine Blade Inspection Using Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing
Paper Type
Technical Paper Publication