Windpower Engineering

In 2008, at the start of the great recession, your humble narrator was presented with a great opportunity: helping to start a new magazine. You might wonder how many magazines your average editor gets to launch in a career. If they are extremely lucky, one. It happened to me. The magazine begun here at WTWH…

A recent tweet pooh-poohed the transition from fossil fueled cars to EVs because the author claimed, even a million of them would only displace 20,000 barrels of imported oil. That figure did not pass the smell test. Let’s look closer.

Everything below the Grid fee is a tax and it totals to 15.826 € cents.

How many turbines would it take to replace all coal and nuclear generation in the U.S. with wind power, and how much land would they occupy?

Several trends underway are changing how wind farms are constructed.

Wind critics use the wind industry as their go-to whipping boy for anything it seems they dislike. For instance, traffic getting worse? Blame the wind industry.  Got indigestion?  Blame the wind industry. Power costs headed up? Blame the wind industry. That’s bone-headed thinking on all counts, although the latter is the only one we’ll address.…

At a recent conference, a colleague from Chicago-based machine shop Bley LLC showed me pictures of the huge parts his team manufacturers. A gearbox front housing with torque arms, for instance, appeares over 6-ft in diameter. Main shafts are some 6-ft long and 2-ft in diameter with 5-ft diameter flanges on one end. Company manager…

The continuous shortage of Hall Effect sensors is trouble for manufacturers. But Premo’s family of Hall effect sensors have an output current with a fixed range of 4 to 20mA. The new series provides a linearity <0.5% with a ±1% accuracy levels. The bandwidth is up to 6kHz with a response time less than 200…

The light, portable TurnPro tool can automatically assemble two ferrules and a high-purity-tube fitting to manufacturer recommendations. The tool is easy to handle because controls in the power house (motor body) accurately measure 1.25 turns from “finger tight” and then shut the motor off. The tool provides a repeatable fitting make-up every time. The tool…

TopView software lets users configure alarms, monitor remote processes, signal notifications, and more. The software is a comprehensive, cost-effective alarm management and notification program that’s useful when data must be monitored, such as in wind turbines and other non-manned facilities. The software lets users quickly respond to abnormal conditions. Users can customize notification messages and…

The arms on tubular steel transmission poles typically attach using as many as 16 bolts. It takes a small crew about a half an hour to get an arm in place, attach all of those bolts and nuts, and then tighten to specifications. Engineers at Thomas & Betts developed a connection using a pinned joint…

A medium-intensity obstruction light flashes red to mark structures at night that present a hazard to aviation. The L450-864-G has benefits of advanced LED and controls, as well as an effective intensity of 2,000 cd red, 20 fpm night flashing operating mode, horizontal beam coverage of 360°, vertical beam profile of 3° min., and stabilized…

It’s no secret that wind-turbine capacity, particularly for offshore turbines, continues to grow each year with 6 to 10 MW on the horizon. Even with efficiency improvements, key power generation subsystems —including generators, power-conversion electronics and transformers—are challenged to manage ever increasing heat within limited nacelle space. In addition, even if incurred power losses are…

On modern wind turbines, each blade is adjusted by an independent electro-mechanical pitch-control unit. The electronic controller checks the turbine’s power output several times each second. Should the power output become too high, the controller signals the blade-pitch mechanisms to turn the rotor blades slightly out of the wind. Conversely, when wind velocity decreases, the…

The trend toward longer turbine blades means greater energy capture at lower wind speeds. However, with bigger blades comes increased weight and stress on the adhesive bond line. Polyurethane adhesives can improve the long-term performance of future blades while reducing total manufacturing cost. To boost energy yield, rotor blades are becoming larger and heavier. The…

Not long ago, transport company ATS International (ATSI) was contracted to ship 100 complete wind turbines. Nacelles and hubs came from Germany, towers were made in Korea, and blades were transported from a fabrication facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. The units were allocated to multiple projects in the Pacific Northwest. Due to permit and financing…

The Port of Vancouver, Washington boasts two of the largest harbor cranes in North America. Each has a 140-metric ton capacity. The size allows reaching across a wide ship to unload heavy cargo. A 100-ton crane could have trouble unloading a Panamax-sized (wide) vessel because it cannot reach across the ship and pick up an…

A variable-ratio transmission that uses gears and chains, but no belts, has been introduced for licensing and production by inventor Gary Lee, CTO of VMT Technologies (www.theuniversaltransmission.com). The transmission works by expanding or reducing the diameter of a “moon gear” that drives the chain, thereby changing ratios. It does not rely on friction, which means…

You have to admit that Congress has a lot on its plate right now with three wars and an economic mess, so expecting it to pass a national energy policy is a bit much. However, defining and financing such an enormous project should be the centerpiece of the next administration. At this time, both sides…