Wind Energy – Blade Handbook
Used by the entire wind industry all around the world and nominated several times for its excellent communications design the Blade Handbook has become a go-to manual for the industry to use to easier communicate about wind turbine blades.
Over the past 7 years, the Blade Handbook has been commonly used by utility companies (WTOs), manufacturers (OEMs), and service companies (ISPs) – amongst others – as the book is designed to improve the common understanding of everyday blade-related issues, to get a common language in the wind industry, and to help newcomers getting an overview.
The reason for its success comes down to the collaborations and contributions from blade specialists together with the support from visualization and communication professionals.
Developed by experts
To hit a high score in any product or service in any market knowing the end user’s needs is essential. In this case, the book started as a document aimed to help all parties involved in a project headed by Bladena named LEX (Funded by EUDP – Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Programme) to get a common understanding of words, processes, levels, and the overall concept. It was clear back then that a shared lingo was needed as a specific blade issue would have many names depending on the eyes looking at it.
By teaming up with KIRT x THOMSEN in the concept and design phase with contributions from the partners in the project it was clear that this book started showing great potential. In the following years the visualizations, contributions, and themes were updated in the following projects RATZ, EWIC, and CORTIR resulting in three award nominations and copies shipped worldwide. Gladly, the development of the handbook has been able to continue in the ongoing CORTIR II project – still headed by Bladena with support from KIRT x THOMSEN, partners, and new contributors.
What to look forward to in the new edition
In the 2022 edition some of the existing content that has been heavily updated are:
Torsional loads are the realistic loads during blade operation.
The failure mode table now includes the instability phenomena (e.g., flutter, edgewise vibrations), torsional loads, and one of the main themes of CORTIR II, the shear web disbonding.
Risk-based maintenance highlights its importance during the decision-making of WTOs when it comes to choosing the most appropriate and cost-efficient maintenance strategy for their fleets.
Also, the following new topics have been included:
The digital twin concept is introduced, and the validation process of such numerical models by optimizing measurement and sub-component and full-scale testing.
Monitoring techniques are described in the handbook as tools used to reduce the risk on blades so that damages can be detected in good time and catastrophic failures can be avoided.
Measurement sensors are also accommodated, by expressing how they can be used in computational model validation.
The leading-edge erosion and lightning are also introduced comprehensively with great contributions from Polytech.
To download the electronic 2022 Blade Handbook edition, click here.
