Increased safety for offshore wind turbines

PULS Power is supporting a university project, aimed at detecting damages to the grout connections in offshore wind turbines.

Maximilian Hülsebusch, of the PULS Power marketing team, explains

Grouted connections in offshore wind turbines are formed by attaching overlapping steel piles with an ultra-high strength cementitious grout. The structural performance of grouted connections is critical for the substructures to exhibit sufficient resistance to environmental loads.

With the continued growth of green energy, it is increasingly important to ensure robust and durable solutions for power generation, ensuring continued service and reliability for decades. Offshore wind turbines present particular challenges for operators and manufacturers alike. On the high seas, the turbines are constantly exposed to harsh and extreme environmental conditions. This requires modern monitoring solutions that can measure external influences, such as vibrations and structural safety.

Early damage detection

As part of the large In-Situ-WIND project, the University Siegen is developing a monitoring system to detect damage to the grout connections in offshore wind turbines. Two different approaches are being pursued for the system development, one based on radar technology and the other looking at vibration technology.

The focus of the research team is on the development of algorithms to compensate for EOC effects (Environmental and Operational Conditions) on the existing damage characteristics. In addition, the team is developing new damage detection approaches with indicators that are sensitive to changes in the grout connections, but not affected by changes in the load and operating conditions of the turbine itself.

A broad database, recorded under real offshore conditions, is very important for developing algorithms, which is why the measurement system is already installed in a working wind turbine near Helgoland.

Reliable and fail-safe power supplies

PULS Power is supporting the project by providing a number of robust power supplies, as well as electronic circuit breakers and DC UPS units, which supply the measurement and data acquisition system with electrical power.

The system design requires a very high level of reliability and availability, and the design team chose PULS 480W power supplies with an integrated decoupling feature (CP20.241-R1). These units allow the design of a redundant power supply system without the need for an additional redundancy module. In addition, one CP20.241-R1 power supply is connected to a DC UPS unit and the electronic circuit breaker (PISA-B-812-B1) is used to safely distribute the current within the system.

System diagnosis

The design team also uses the relay contact provided by the power supply units and the electronic circuit breaker for system diagnosis via connection to an industrial PC (IPC) which also serves as a data acquisition interface.

PULS Power supports important research projects in renewable energy and other emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles and Industry 4.0.