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Flat packing a wind turbine.
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Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...3447#post78090
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...096#post112435
Saw a bunch of those blades go by on the Interstate this summer driving from AZ to CO to OH and back to AZ. They're BIG. They've put up a LOT of those turbines; from when we hit eastern CO all the way there and back we saw probably hundreds of them. On another trip last year when we were driving through Texas, we were never out of sight of fields of 'em for hundreds of miles from I10 in SW Texas up to the Oklahoma line.
It seems that they have been replacing the older ones here in Texas nearly as fast as they are putting new ones up. Wind farms in Texas are growing as fast as corn in Iowa .
Wind power in Texas consists of many wind farms with a total installed nameplate capacity of 22,637 MW[1][2] from over 40 different projects. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state.[3] Wind power accounted for 14.8% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017.
source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Texas
From what I have heard, the inner core of these blades are made from balsa wood. Because of the shear size and numbers of these blades produced, there is a shortage of balsa. If you are an old school model airplane builder this is bad news for you as well as the rain forest. Has anyone else heard this?
Runaway windmill fire.
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Not much you can do when an older generator shorts out and burns but let it burn itself out.
Once the blade lock down device and the speed controls are shot just keep everyone well away from the thing. The bearings and gearing will eventually fail then the blades are going to shear off where they will land will be anybody's guess
Newer generator Nacelles have better thermal safety lock down systems which will lock the rotors then pitch the blades to zero angle but nothing is totally infallible.
I was thinking about leasing to a wind company to allow a turbine to be installed on this property but 1 I don't have enough land A variance to that could be done providing the neighboring rancher would consider leasing part of his ranch as well. My property has 2 areas that are far enough away from the house that a turbine could be installed 1 area to the South gets a little too close to the used to be town and the other area to the North is too close to the road so that $5000.00 per year income is not to be had. unless I could somehow buy part of the ranch property to the East of me at the North end of my property.
Strange they are packing the blades at the top of the load? They must not be doing direct assemble but unload and then install.
Ralph
Ralph not so strange when you consider the weight of the tower tubes compared to the weight of the blades.
The blades, tower sections Generator Nacelles and the hubs pass by here quite often. The Hubs will be on a double drop 2 axle lowboy the Nacelle will be on a 3 axle trailer with a tri drive tractor the blades on a triple stretch trailer usually having 3 axles often steerable,and the tractor having 3 rear axles mostly due to the weight of the trailer
the tower sections on a dolly and jeep basket 4 to 6 axle steerable dolly 3 sometimes 4 axle jeep basket and truck again with at least 3 rear axles.
Some of those tower sections are 10 to 12 feet in diameter and i have been told as much as 2 inches thick thicker for the base section.
that's a lot of weight.
Interesting that 2 of those towers are on fire. The one in the back is billowing smoke but can't see any flames. Wonder what kind of drain/surge would cause 2 to go at the same time. I think the core of the blades are polystyrene and the likely cause of the swirls...but what cause the blade to catch fire at the tip? Burning from the inside out?
PJs the only thing I can think of that could have started a fire in the tip of the blade would have been a lightening strike if the lightening had struck the generator just as the blade passed through the energy field, That very well could account for the second generator burning as well multiple strikes are not unheard of in a small area. and those turbines should be spaced several 100 yards apart
A large enough strike could have burned out the turbine brake as well which may account for only the 1 turbine spinning the others appear to be locked down.
Kind of makes sense about a lightning strike and know they do stir up some static electricity. I think the blade shells are carbon fiber but quite sure they are seriously grounded in multiple points. But when I think about the tip velocity of this size turbine being probably 100mph+ (~50m/s) the odds of a lightning strike to a moving tip at that speed seems astronomical. If it were lightning strikes (multiple) those odds would go up exponentially, although the second one only appears to be burning at the Nacelle.Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank S
Based on the almost horizontal smoke trail and the 'Apparent' velocity of it, plus the fact that all other turbines are stopped with blades rotated to 0° (wind direction), the other possibility is a very high and gusty wind speeds and a probably failure of the stall systems on the two systems. Additionally these seem to be older systems based on the blade shape and look Nacelle's and may not have a quality maintenance history.
Once again we don't have much to go on with a gif with no details (an interesting pic for sure) but it's kind of fun to question what we are seeing.
PJ
A cousin-in-law of mine is the county engineer for a county in Ohio with a bunch of these things; he hates them roundly because the trucks carrying the towers just chew up the little secondary roads they go on because of the weight.