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Wind Turbine Overspeed Failure Video


Moderators: ProjRisk, Jeff Wright

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Andrew Lowry

Fri Mar 28 2008, 07:19AM

Greetings.

Does anyone have any further information on these failures?

Wind Turbine overspeed event in Denmark earlier in 2008. Shown in different speeds.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8be_1203819244

Wind Turbine nacelle and blade fire. Location and date unclear.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=eb4_1204940722

Here is some information I found on the first event (overspeed)

Wind Turbine Overspeed 20080225

If you go to

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cdd_1203701257

you can watch a short clip of the failure of a Wind Turbine. I took the time to read the comments, most of which are ignorant or silly to find the following three useful comments. I can not vouch for the accuracy of these comments but they do seem reasonable.

Comment 1
“The braking system failed while 2 technicians worked in the turret in the top. They got out before the collapse. A 19 meter piece of the wing was througn (sic) 200 metres away. Smaller pieces were sent more than 500 metres away..!!”

Comment 2
“The mill had been out of control for hours due to a brake system failure, so people were just waiting for the wind to calm down or the mill to "self destruct".

Such failures are rare - however, a similar incident happened a few years ago in a different part of Denmark.”

“Minister demands explanation for windmill collapse
By The Copenhagen Post

Published 25.02.08 00:00

The climate minister will begin an investigation into two separate cases of Vestas wind turbines collapsing within the past week

The climate minister, Connie Hedegaard, is calling for an investigation to determine the cause of two violent wind turbine collapses in Denmark in the past week.

Both of the windmills were produced by Vestas, and Hedegaard's request to the Energy Board comes after other breakdowns both here and abroad have been reported in the past two months.

'The problems with the turbines abroad have had to do with poor maintenance, and if that's the case here, then I expect a clear report on how we can ensure this problem is rectified,' Hedegaard told Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

Her comments come on the heels of the government's new energy agreement ratified by parliament last week, which calls for the country to have 20 percent of its energy produced by sustainable sources by 2011.

In first of the two collapses, near the city of ?hus, a 10-year-old windmill began spinning out of control during high winds. A recording of the explosion-like collapse shows one of the wing blades breaking off, casting debris into the three other wings and shearing the 60- metre tower nearly in half.

Vestas itself will also now conduct an internal investigation to determine why the wind turbines have been breaking down.

'We've still got about 35,000 wind turbines across the globe that are operating fine,' said Peter Wenzel Kruse, Vestas's spokesperson. 'But they're not infallible. We're doing what we can and learning from our mistakes.'

Farmer Keld Boye, who lives in Vig where the latest incident occurred on Sunday, was clearly shaken by the wind turbine's implosion.

'I drive my tractor and my wife rides horses out there,' he said. 'Just think if we'd been out there when it happened.'”

Andrew Lowry, P. Eng.
Loss Control Engineer

ProjRisk

Fri Mar 28 2008, 10:54AM

Andrew, the dramatic overspeed event was a Nordtank* 600 near Hornslet, Denmark. The associated tower collapse was due to a tower strike by the overspeeding blades. The brakes had been set for maintenance during calmer weather. The blade angles were not appropriate for the higher winds blowing when the brakes were released. No personal injuries.

At http://gramtrans.com/gt/url/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjp.dk%2Findland%2Farticle1277561.ece&pair=dan2eng&x-form-id=translate_url you may read local press of the event. After you open this site, click the Translate box (then it takes a minute or two to translate/load).

The referenced blade incident (660kw V-47 near Sidinge on Odsherred, Denmark) was two days later. One blade came off (bolt failure [maintenance/inspection concerns]).

*Nordtank Energy Group (NEG) merged with Micon in 1997 to form NEG Micon which later merged with Vestas in 2004, hence, the Nordtank turbine was over ten years old.

[ Edited Sat Mar 29 2008, 03:34PM ]

David Schroeder, Finance & Risk Management forum moderator and Global Insurance Consultant at Project Risk Limited, has been involved with hundreds of utility class wind farms totaling over ten gigawatts of capacity.

Wind Turbine

Sat Aug 02 2008, 08:32AM

On the windiest mountain in Texas, at Culberson County there is a wind farm in operation since 1995. Turbines in Hawaii and California since the 80's. Wind Turbines are proven to survive very extreme weather conditions. This event on YouTube with the event is just a hot spot for Wind Energy nay sayers to post stuff that scares people away from wind energy.

It's as ridiculous as the claims of bird killings and noisy turbine postings. Have you ever seen a bird fly AROUND a speeding car, they rarely get hit. Birds can swoop from the sky and catch an insect for a meal, spot a worm in a corn field as they fly by. To think a bird will fly INTO a slow moving turbine blade is ridiculous.

[ Edited Sat Aug 02 2008, 08:40AM ]

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