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Bladena at Sandia Blade Workshop

9/11/2018

 
From August 28-29 you were able to meet Bladena at the 2018 Sandia Blade Workshop in Lubbock, Texas.
​

Joined by Bladena’s new distributor in The South (TX, OK & NM) Jan Poulsen from Einpart, Bladena showcased solutions and services aimed at solving issues in the field during the exhibition. Andrei Buliga, Project Manager and Structural Engineer, M.Sc. staged the scene to present the newest updates on transverse cracks, the root cause and possibilities on prevention and mitigation of them using the D-String®. 
 
Two busy days went by fast and Bladena’s Sales Director Christian Nordal, who is responsible for the US market, was very pleased with the large interest in Bladena’s structural reinforcements from the many participants. 
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Bladena and ImFuture enter a strategic business collaboration on the spanish market

6/4/2018

 
​IMFutuRe will in the future represent Bladena on the Spanish market as an authorized dealer and installation partner of Bladena’s products. In view of the increasing demand for blade repairs and maintenance in Europe the collaboration between Bladena and IMFutuRe is a deliberate decision to accommodate those demands.

With more than 18 years of experience in management, administration, operation and maintenance of facilities in the wind industry IMFutuRe is a well-established key player on the Spanish market with a strong portfolio of customers. Seeing many different types of blade damages (both minimal and critical failures) IMFutuRe has expert insight about the increasing problems different blades are facing which is of great value to Bladena.

“We see and hear a lot about the increasing blade failures that challenges the lifetime of blades on the market. But to be able to help prevent these problems we need insight from repair and maintenance experts as they see, in a larger perspective, how the problems physically evolves by being present on site. With our expertise in structural behavior and damages and ImFutuRe’s knowledge on problems occurring on site, we will be able to bring our retrofit products out on the Spanish market through our new partner,” says Anders Søe-Jensen, CEO of Bladena.
​
With more than 20,000 wind turbines installed in over 1,000 farms Spain has become one of the world leaders in the wind industry. With the large amount of wind turbines in operation, Spain is a market with a large potential both for Bladena and IMFutuRe: supporting wind turbine owners and operators in keeping the blades structurally fit and in operation during the lifetime of the turbines.
Bladena has for the last 7 years focused on developing quality retrofit products that prevent and minimize blade failures with the simple aim to increase the lifetime and durability of blades. This work will now be taken to the next level in Spain together with IMFutuRe.
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International group of wind turbine owners gather in Copenhagen to attend seminar on Next Generation Inspection Methods

6/4/2018

 
18 wind turbine owner companies attend the Next Generation Inspection Methods Seminar June 4th-6th to discuss how to reduce Operation & Maintenance (O&M) cost. A topic many WTOs seek answers to as larger blades increasingly show signs of structural issues after end of warranty.  ​
Each year wind turbine owners, as part of the WTO Blade Group Network, meet to discuss blade related issues. This year’s seminar focuses on inspection methods; what is done today and what should be done in the future, adding the aspect of Owners Requirements to future blades. To explore today’s methods, inspection experts from around the world present advanced technologies with new improved data and results.
 
ENGIE’s Wind Technology Manager, Nicolas Quiévy, says: “New steps have to be made today to better assess the blade condition. Improvements and changes in blade inspection methodologies not only aim to minimize downtime and risk of failure because of severe damages that were not anticipated, but will also increase knowledge about (future) blade design, and maintenance strategies to be adopted.”
 
Today (June 4th) the participants arrived at Bladena in Roskilde to discuss why and how blades fail and how these failures can be avoided by adding new Owners Requirements’ criteria to existing blade certification standards. The Owners Requirements and Inspection methods go hand in hand as both topics through different approaches attempt to improve the performance and lifetime of blades, which is the wind turbine owners’ main concern.
 
Continuing at FORCE Technology June 5th Aracnocoptero, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Hensoldt, Siemens, Das Nano NOTUS, IMFUTURE and FORCE Technology will present new technologies and knowledge on blade inspection discussing the different types of blade failures occurring and the need for a systemized and standardized inspection data roadmap.
 
Project Manager and CTO of Bladena, Find Mølholt Jensen, says: “As Project Manager for both projects, Bladena is devoted to increase the awareness about structural related blade issues. Through the RATZ and EWIC projects Bladena sees a positive growth in the interest from wind turbine owners, insurance companies, inspection and blade experts who are eager to come together to exchange experience on how to reduce maintenance cost and more so the lifetime of blades”. 
 
This year, a third day has been added to the seminar with the focus on failure in composite materials (on wind turbine blades). The wind turbine owners will have the opportunity to witness physical test results of blade failures that are not detected by today’s inspection methods. Day 3 (June 6th) will take place at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in Lyngby.  
 
The WTO seminar is partly funded through the EWIC Project (End of Warranty Inspection Concepts) facilitated by Offshoreenergy.dk through the European Regional Development Fund under the heading CRIF -  Cost Reduction and Innovative Forum and partly under the RATZ Project funded by the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP), which is administered by the Danish Energy Agency.
​
Wind Turbine Owners and insurance companies attending the WTO Next Generation Inspection Methods Seminar: Acciona Energy, Brookfield Renewable, EDF Energy, Eneco, Enel, ENGIE, E.ON, EWII, Gemini Wind Park, HOFOR, Innogy, Natural Power, RES, ScottishPower Renewables, Statoil, Stena Renewable, Vattenfall, WindMW Service GmbH and CODAN.

Bladena welcomes Christian Nordal to the Sales Team

5/3/2018

 
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Picture Photo: Christian Nordal, Anders Søe-Jensen, Ryan Lauridsen and Find M. Jensen
​Bladena is experiencing a growing interest and demand for its structural enhancements reinforcing existing wind turbine blades. To keep up with the positive development the board has decided to strengthen the sales team and hired Christian Nordal as of April 15th. Christian Nordal will focus on the North American aftermarket and select global customers using his extensive knowledge in business development and many years of experience within the wind industry.
Ryan Lauridsen, CSO, will in the future focus on the many opportunities on the European aftermarket which is continuing its positive response to the gains and benefits of Bladena’s structural retrofit solutions.
Leading all the efforts is CEO Anders Søe-Jensen who will focus strongly on the OEM market. CTO Find Mølholt Jensen and his technical team will continue supporting the commercial activities.

Bladena develops and demonstrates the X-Stiffener™ technology in the Offshore Demonstration Blade (ODB) Project

4/18/2018

 
​The Offshore Demonstration Blade (ODB) Project develops seven new technologies to reduce the production cost of wind energy in turbines installed offshore. It is financed with four million euros from funds from the EU's Horizon 2020 Program. Researchers from ten universities and companies from the United Kingdom, Denmark, Holland and Spain participate in the ODB Project, which held its General Assembly 2018 in Valencia. 

Partners for the EUDP: Bladena, DIS Engineering, Total Wind, DTU Mechanical Engineering, Collaboration Partners in the EU-Demo project from UK, Holland and Spain: Catapult, TNO, Aerox, Gamesa 

Wind turbine blades - new concepts for End of Warranty Inspection - EWIC

1/29/2018

 
The EWIC project will demonstrate how the value of end of warranty inspections can be enhanced – with the overall objective to reduce LCoE and extend the operational lifetime of the blades.
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Currently, there are no official statistics of structural damages on the blades and especially not for newer turbines where the failure rate is significant higher than for small turbines. However, the area is of high importance to the wind turbine owners and a well-known fact. Still most of inspections are performed on the outside of the blade, which only shows the “top of the iceberg”. Inspecting inside the blade, in the areas that are critical, will show the small part underneath the “iceberg”, and if NDT are used, a higher picture of the damages will be shown. Often, the results of inadequate inspection are formation of structural damages, that in worst case leads to blade failure or total turbine failure. Visualization by Kirt x Thomsen
​Vattenfall, E.ON, HOFOR together with The Blade Group Network – consisting of more than 30 wind turbine owners – have strongly encouraged that new concepts for the inspection of turbine blades at the end of warranty need to be developed. Their wish is to profoundly incorporate results of the latest research activities and extensive field experience in this work.

The wind turbine owners have teamed up with OffshoreEnergy.dk, Bladena, Total Wind BLAEST, Kirt-Thomsen and FORCE Technology to achieve this objective – optimize the quality of the blade inspection method and develop a common understanding/standard for how this work should be done in the future.

Anders Søe-Jensen, CEO at Bladena and former CEO of GE Offshore and Vestas Offshore, says:
​
“As a standard, blades have for many years been inspected from the outside without any internal inspections. We know today, that even if the blade surface looks intact there may be serious issues to be found on the inside of the blades and even inside the panel structures. Therefore, the implementation of new inspection methods is to extend the lifetime by reducing maintenance costs and minimizing the future down-time.”
​

Hence, the EWIC project partners have agreed to thoroughly investigate options for inspections of the blades from the inside and inside the material.
The project will define the details of how inside visual inspections should be carried out. The deployment of small size cameras and NDT in critical areas will be explored.
Visual inspection and NDT techniques will be combined with knowledge about theoretical failure modes, failure modes found in the laboratory tests and with data from blades damaged in the field. This will allow the definition of an optimal strategy for the use of NDT methods such as thermography and ultrasound in selected areas.
Offshoreenergy.dk has facilitated the 1 million DKK funding of the project through the European Regional Development Fund under the heading CRIF -  Cost Reduction and Innovation Forum. 
Glenda Napier, the CEO of Offshoreenergy.dk, expects major benefits to come out of the project:
​
“We are delighted to support the idea of developing new methodologies for this important activity in the life of turbine blades and that it can be shared by all of the industry players – leading to overall cost reductions for the industry.“
​

Bladena is heading the technical part of the EWIC project as project manager.

​EWIC was kicked off on the 23rd of January in the Bladena offices in Roskilde, Denmark. The partners attending were sharing knowledge and brainstorming to create a roadmap for this year’s activities covering topics like innovative inspection methods, selection of focus area/techniques based on large scale of data, development of inspection and test equipment prototype, field test etc.
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EWIC Kickoff Meeting January 2018: The partners met at Bladena

Bladena enters a strategic coopeartion agreement with Bergen Group AAK

1/29/2018

 
​Bergen Group AAK and Bladena ApS have established a cooperation agreement on future assignments towards the wind power market. The goal is to strengthen competitiveness and market position towards an increasing market for maintenance and lifetime extension of wind park installations. The agreement also opens for cooperation on deliveries to new installations, both onshore and offshore.
 
Torgeir Nærø, CEO in Bergen Group ASA and MD in the subsidiary Bergen Group AAK, describes the cooperation agreement as an important operational and strategic measure to strengthen the company's position towards the wind power industry.
 
"In recent years, we have established a strong foothold in the wind power segment through various service and framework agreements with both national and international companies. By establishing this cooperation agreement with internationally acknowledged Bladena ApS in Denmark, we further strengthen our focus on this market "says Torgeir Nærø.
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​The CEO points out that Bergen Group AAK has long experience in performing various types of service and maintenance operations under conditions with demanding access. Bladena ApS, in turn, has a strong position as a supplier of dynamic analyzes associated with loads and compensating measures for turbine blades. Compensating measures include mechanical components that correct, amplify and prolong the operational timeline. The field proven solutions increase the power output per turbine.
 
"We see an increasing demand for improved performance on wind power installations with exposed turbines and unnecessarily high loads. At the same time, we experience an increase in the demand for our services towards the market for lifetime extension of wind turbine blades. The collaboration with Bladena ApS gives both parties a strengthened competitiveness in this market”, Nærø states.
 
Bladena ApS is headquartered in Roskilde, Denmark, and is an established product and service provider for turbine blades for the European and American wind power markets. Bladena's technology platform originates from more than 10 years of research and development work at DTU-Risø in Denmark. Amongst others, this work formed the basis for 7 patents, which was taken over by Bladena, when it was launched as a spin-out from DTU in 2011. For more information, visit www.bladena.com
 
Bergen Group AAK is a fully owned subsidiary of Bergen Group ASA. The company is experts on access techniques utilized for maintenance, modifications and operations, typically for work at height or areas with complicated access.  Bergen Group AAK operate in various markets, including service on oil and gas up- and downstream facilities, on- and offshore wind parks, bridges and tunnels for road and rail, hydropower stations and other infrastructure. The company is headquartered at Sotra outside Bergen, and has approx. 60 employees.
 
More information is found at www.bladena.com  or  www.bergengroup.no
 
Contacts:
​Ryan Lauridsen, Chief Sales Officer in Bladena ApS, phone +45 20 14 59 96
Torgeir Nærø, CEO of Bergen Group ASA and MD in Bergen Group AAK; phone +47 922 00 778

Bladena tests blade with combined loading which confirms that D-Stiffener™ avoids cracks on the trailing edge panels

11/28/2017

 
As the awareness about blade failures caused by combined loads increases, the need for changing blade design standards and certification has become a very discussed topic. As part of the EUDP RATZ project, Bladena did a full-scale test with combined loading at BLAEST on a 34m blade. Also, the structural impact of Bladena’s D-Stiffener™ was tested and the expected increase in buckling capacity of the trailing edge area was demonstrated.
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New test design with combined loading
​​Traditionally, blades are tested under pure edge and flapwise loads in test centers. The intention of testing in these directions is to validate the design assumptions and to pass the required certification process. It is well known and proved that the simplified flap and edgewise tests does not represent the loads that the blade experiences during operation. Previous studies funded by EUDP e.g. the Full-scale Test SSP 34m blade at Risø or Experimental Blade Research Phase II at Risø, have shown a critical angle between the pure edge and pure flap area on blades, where the trailing edge buckles at rather low loads.
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Traditional blade test
​​Full-scale test with combined loading
The test was loaded with a combined edge and flapwise loading. The load was selected with the angle that gives higher loads. The load was applied at four radial positions of the blade. 
The classical way of applying loads in a full-scale blade is by load clamps. Using clamps will restrict the blade to deform and thus prevent it to get the failure modes to evaluate if they occur during the test. ​
​The impact of D-Stiffeners™ 
15 D-Stiffeners™ were installed in the trailing edge region mid span of the blade. To measure the effect of D-Stiffeners™ 12 strain gauges were mounted back-to-back in the trailing edge. 

Two full-scale tests were performed. The one without D-Stiffeners™ showed a non-linear strain behavior at 48% loads. A non-linear strain behavior is well-known in the literature as a clear sign that the structures have buckled and  the risk for failure is likely if additional loads are applied. This was the case at Risø DTU where a similar blade was tested using the same test setup including load clamps. In the test with D-stiffeners™ installed there was no non-linear strain behavior, hence there was no buckling. ​

​Owners requirements to existing Blade design and certification standards
Owner requirements are a set of additional requirements to the existing certification requirements. They concern mainly wind turbine blade testing in order to minimize the issues appearing in the field after the certification process. Owners requirements is basically a set of calculations/measurements/upgradings of testing methods which, if performed, will address some of the failure modes not captured by today’s standards.
​Birgit Junker, blade specialist at E.ON, recognises the need for add-on criteria to the exiting certification requirements e.g. the full-scale test with combined loads: “The importance of changing the requirements for full-scale testing, so that they include combined loading, is essential to reduce the risk of blade damages in the field. As the size of the blades increases we come across larger blade damages if this is not addressed in the future, she says.”
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Conclusion
A full-scale test with combined static loads was performed at the certified blade test center BLAEST as part of the EUDP project called RATZ. Measurements in the trailing edge of a 34 meter blade were taken to capture bending/buckling of the trailing edge panels. The load applied was a combination of flap and edgewise loading, which is known to be a more critical load than the traditional pure flap and edge. 
The implementation of the tests was proven to not be very demanding making it possible to implement in a short period of time.

Strain measurements showed a clear effect of the D-Stiffeners™. Based on these measurements it was concluded that the actual blade, which showed buckling at a load level at 48%, had no buckling with the D-Stiffeners™ installed when the test was stopped at approximate 60% loading.

Bladena collaborates with 10 European partners in a two-year reseach project

11/23/2017

 
An international € 4 million research collaboration between 10 European partners is leading the development of seven offshore wind turbine blade technologies, which collectively could lower the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of offshore wind by as much as 4.7%.

The Offshore Demonstration Blade (ODB) project is supporting the research, development and demonstration of wind turbine blade innovations, including aerodynamic and structural enhancements, blade monitoring systems and blade erosion protection solutions. These products will be developed and retrofitted to the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s 7MW Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine in Scotland for demonstration purposes. The innovations will then be ready for deployment on existing or new offshore turbines. The two-year Demowind-funded project will be coordinated by the UK’s ORE Catapult Development Services Ltd (ODSL), and involve organisations in wind turbine innovation including CENER, Bladena, TNO, Aerox, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Total Wind, Dansk IngeniørService A/S (DIS), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Cardenal Herrera University (CEU) in Spain

Find the article here (In English)

​In Danish here
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New international collaboration to improve the performance of offshore wind turbine blades

11/8/2017

 
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Seven new technological blade enhancements aim to reduce cost of offshore wind energy by up to 4.7%.

A major, international €4 million research collaboration between 10 European partners is leading the development of seven novel offshore wind turbine blade technologies, which collectively could lower the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of offshore wind by as much as 4.7%.

The Offshore Demonstration Blade (ODB) project is supporting the research, development and demonstration of wind turbine blade innovations, including aerodynamic and structural enhancements, blade monitoring systems and blade erosion protection solutions. These products will be developed and retrofitted to the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s 7MW Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine in Scotland for demonstration purposes. The innovations will then be ready for deployment on existing or new offshore turbines.

The two-year Demowind-funded project will be coordinated by the UK’s ORE Catapult Development Services Ltd (ODSL), and involve leading organizations in wind turbine innovation including CENER, Bladena, TNO, Aerox, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Total Wind, Dansk IngeniørService A/S (DIS), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Cardenal Herrera University (CEU) in Spain.

Operations and maintenance costs represent almost a quarter of the total LCOE of an offshore wind turbine, with rotor operations and maintenance, specifically blade erosion and blade structural integrity, representing a large share of these costs. Therefore, improving the performance and operational lifetime of turbine blades will have a direct impact in lowering LCOE.

- We have reason to be proud of being part of projects like this one. Denmark is in the lead when it comes to wind power research. The research benefits both the general renewable energy conversion as well as the Danish wind power industry, says Anders Søe-Jensen, CEO of Bladena and former CEO of Vestas Offshore and GE Offshore.

The Danish part of the project is supported by the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP), which is administered by the Danish Energy Agency.

For more information contact:
Lea Sleimann, PR responsible at DIS, +45 87 38 74 50, les@d-i-s.dk, odb-project.com.
​
/Photo – must be credited/
ORE Catapult Development Services Ltd

For Danish version click Here
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 691732
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  • International Conference 2022
  • Services & Solutions

      Phases

      • Purchase of turbines
      • Commissioning of blades
      • End of warranty
      • Operation
      • Lifetime extension

      Solutions

      • D-String®
      • D-Stiffener™
      • X-Stiffener™
      • D-TE™

      Courses

      • Structural Blade Course

      Tools

      • CAR Tool
      • Blades Data
      • Structural Analysis
      • Elastic instabilities
      • Testing

      Downloads

      • All Downloads
  • Cases
  • R&D Projects
  • Who we are

      Who we are

      • About us
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