Ardrossan wind turbine picture

[Kiltie]

Amazing!



Story here; although it's sadly light on detail.

Cheers,

Eric

Edited by Kiltie on Friday 9th December 03:02

Edited by Kiltie on Friday 9th December 03:03

[WillyRennie]

Nice to see something that's meant to keep the planet cool and stop/slow down global warming has itself, got a bit hot and combusted

[erdnase]

Any turbine engineers know why it's facing in the opposite direction from the other two? I assume they can be rotated, or the blades feathered in high winds.. but what's going on here?

[Mojocvh]

Hmm something ain't right with the direction in those winds, heard that there was a team at he bottom trying to work but that's just rumour. I don't work at that site or that type/manu so best keep my thoughts to myself for the moment and just be glad that no one was hurt, I REALLY wouldn't fancy your chances trying to escape from that at 0.8 m/s on a rope.

Edited by Mojocvh on Sunday 11th December 18:58

[erdnase]

From my totally uninformed guesswork looking at the pic:

The other two are facing away from the wind (safety, or is it a procedure to stop them being damaged in high winds?) - but the one that exploded isn't or couldn't be for whatever reason. It spins out, overspeed, blows itself apart and a flaming chunk of machinery is projected out, before the wind blows it back in the direction it came from.

Scary stuff indeed. I remember seeing a youtube clip of a smaller turbine blowing itself apart in high winds and it was pretty spectacular. I can't imagine how anyone in the vicinity of this thing must have felt when it blew itself apart!

[tvradict]

The other 2 turbines in the picture are facing into the wind. That picture was taken from Ardrossan on Thursday.
I took this picture from between Ardrossan and West Kilbride on Friday.

[Angelus]

When it spun the other way, it should have shut down but it didn't. The result is obvious to see. I'm sure they will all be tested to stop it happening again. One more catastrophe could mean a full scale enquiry.

[slipstream 1985]

this story is just a bunch of hot air

[erdnase]

slipstream 1985 said:

this story is just a bunch of hot air

Sorry, it's the hot air balloon thread you should have posted that joke in. Sorry to take the wind out your sails.

[Blukoo]

WillyRennie said:

Nice to see something that's meant to keep the planet cool and stop/slow down global warming has itself, got a bit hot and combusted

Are you under the impression that these are fans to help cool the world?

[Kiltie]

Blukoo said:

WillyRennie said:

Nice to see something that's meant to keep the planet cool and stop/slow down global warming has itself, got a bit hot and combusted

Are you under the impression that these are fans to help cool the world?

I rather think that the boy is merely a tube.

Cheers,

Eric

[Mojocvh]

If the others were pointing into wind [as per smoke in picture] then the vestas turbines aerobrake by pitching the blades into wind leading edge first plus some. If it's req'd then they can hyd brake to lock beyond "maint idle".
Don't know why subject turbine was 180 ish out; may have had some other reason for being in that direction but would have thought OPS would have clicked that a turb was 180 out with the forecast wind/directions.
These machines control their pointing/direction very precisely, using a number of motors to yaw the nacelle in "real time" along with blade pitch to maximise generation efficiency.
As I said, there will have been a reason it was at that position, but until a report comes out then we'll have to wait.