Testing wind power turbines doesn’t just require megawatts of drivetrain power, it requires sophisticated hydraulic control systems and high performance actuators to simulate blade loads. Today’s wind turbines are rated at 4 megawatts with new wind farm projects being proposed using 6 megawatt and larger units. New wind turbines exceed the capacity of any known testing capability. While these larger turbines are being built on the premise that they will perform more effectively than smaller systems, the history of the industry so far has shown that many turbine components are subjected to severe conditions. At this enormous scale, there is little experience to guide the design process, making the creation of testing facilities a critical issue.

Anticipating this trend, the Department of Energy circulated requests for proposal to create a test facility to support testing at 7.5 and 15 megawatts. In 2009, Clemson University Restoration Institute, bid and won the project based on a sophisticated concept designed by RENK Test System.

Comparing Power

The power of horizontal wind turbines is difficult to grasp. For comparison, think about a small car at 100 horsepower or 75 kW. A small school bus might be 450 HP or 336 kW. The biggest locomotive engines currently operating are approximately 3 MW. Testing at 7.5 and 15 MW might seem like a stretch, but working with an engineering team that has done many programs at 3-4 MW is what made RENK Test System the ideal partner for Clemson to team with.

RENK Test System of Augsburg, Germany is a supplier of high power, custom engineered test systems. The company specializes in complex testing of critical equipment like tank transmissions, locomotive engines, and helicopter drive trains. Each test system is engineered to deal with the unique operating conditions required for the article under test.

Read more….