New radar scanner tests wind turbine blades for defects

Thanks to the innovative radar scanner from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, defects in the material composition of the wind turbine blades can now be detected with far greater accuracy and visualized ...

Lifting mechanism for mounting huge rotor blades

Siemens has created a special mechanism for mounting its 75-meter-long rotor blades for offshore wind farms. The lifting system makes assembly work safer and lets construction take place at higher wind speeds than was previously ...

Perfection: The enemy of evolution

Scientists are often trained to seek out the absolute best solution to a given problem. On a chalk board, this might look something like drawing a graph to find a function's minimum or maximum point. When designing a turbojet ...

NASA helicopter's mission ends after three years on Mars

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which made history by achieving the first powered flight on another world, has officially ended its nearly three-year mission after sustaining rotor damage during its last outing, the space ...

Extreme testing for rotor blades

Wind turbines are growing bigger and bigger – the diameter of their rotor blades could soon reach 180 meters. But that creates a need for larger test rigs capable of accommodating the blades for load testing. One of ...

NASA Tweaks Tech Toolbox to Capture Tricky Rotor Results

(PhysOrg.com) -- "Smooth" and "quiet" are two words not usually associated with a helicopter ride, but NASA is working to change that. A full-size UH-60A Blackhawk helicopter rotor was the subject of tests the agency's Subsonic ...

Intelligently recovering and recycling balsa wood

There are 30,000 wind turbines in operation in Germany, many of which are starting to age. In 2019, 2000 rotor blades had to be discarded; in 2024, this figure will shoot up to 15,000. But where to put these up to 90-meter-long, ...

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