During the inspection of the wind turbines, the wpd windmanager field services will frequently observe damages to the foundations such as cracking, clod-like spalling from the concrete, erosion, removal of the soft stratum and corrosion on the reinforcement and on installation parts of the foundation.
To avoid any hazards to the stability of the wind turbine wpd windmanager offers a vibration monitoring as so-called value added service. During such a measuring campaign the damage to the foundation will be determined by the vertical deflections of the wind turbine generators at the tower base. When measuring, the wind turbine will be brought up to a generator speed of 1,600 revolutions/minute and then it will be stopped by pitching the rotor blades, thus setting the tower into oscillation. In case that deflections of more than 1 mm are being detected, regular measuring campaigns of the movements of the foundation components in the concrete block will be implemented. Experience shows that early detection of possible damages lead to more cost-efficient remedial procedures.
The systems that have been and are being used did not meet the final demands of a high-quality measurement arrangement. Our engineers have thus, in cooperation with other wpd windmanager specialists – developed their own system, from the tripod to the IT program and the hardware, which is now being applied successfully.
wpd windmanager offers foundation evaluation and vibration monitoring by our experts as value added service which may also be used outside of an existing management contract.