R&D Test Systems Builds Massive 25 MW Main Bearing Test Facility

The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

In this episode, Peter Winther, Key Account Manager at R&D Test Systems, discusses the construction of the world's most powerful main bearing test facility at the Lindø Offshore Renewable Center in Denmark. Winther provides fascinating insights into the engineering challenges and scale of this groundbreaking 25-megawatt facility, including details about its massive concrete foundation and the specialized testing capabilities designed to simulate decades of wear in just months. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.comWind Energy O&M Australia Conference - https://www.windaustralia.com Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy's brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering Tomorrow. Allen Hall: Today we're joined by Peter Winther, Key Account Manager at R& D Test Systems, a company that's revolutionizing how we test wind turbine components. R& D Test Systems is currently building the world's most powerful main bearing test facility at the Lindo Offshore Renewable Center in Denmark. They have already delivered the largest halt test bench for nacelle testing at the same location and now these facilities are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in wind turbine testing with capabilities up to 25 megawatts. Peter brings extensive experience in large scale test system development and has been instrumental in multiple groundbreaking projects at LORC. Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. All right, so you're building a 25 megawatt main bearing test system. Facility. That's big. That's very big. So just give it a sense of scale. How big is a 25 megawatt bearing? Peter Winther: The bearing itself, I would guess the inside diameter is more than four meters in a typical bearing constellation. The test bench on the other high, on the other side is also relatively big to be able to break that bearing or bearings, depending on what you're testing. The test bench itself pretty big. First of all, features a pretty decent size concrete block or foundation at the bottom, which is roundabout 35 meters long. It took 30 hours to cast the whole thing. It was a one continuous process. We had 280 trucks coming in and they were coming in every six minutes. And so we basically took all, I think, concrete production from Fyn, which is the island where Ålensø or the test bench is being realized. And then we had back off plants in case the plant went down because if you start casting, you can't stop, you need to go ahead. You can't have a cold joint. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the foundation itself. An essential thing when you make a foundation like this is also to make sure it cools in the right manner. You can't just cast it and then go away and then come back in an hour or a week and then all is fine because then you risk not having. The right material properties throughout the foundation. So we had a more than one megawatt cooling system, making sure that the cross-sectional temperatures throughout different cross sec cross-sections and the foundation was right and not too much of a difference, so we didn't get cracks and creeping and unwanted properties at the end because you, you can't really get rid of it. Allen Hall: When you take this project on, how many engineering challenges are there? Obviously building the. Concrete Foundation by itself is a massive undertaking. How many, how do you break this down and how many big hurdles ...