GE Energy Engineers Get Blown Away

GE Energy engineers have a pretty specific purpose in mind when it comes to designing and optimizing their wind turbines. They want to obtain data on how the wind interacts with their blade design. Their requirements are actually quite simple. They just want to know what is happening so they can design more efficient blades. Actually it’s a bit more complicated than just that.

GE’s mechanical engineers more specifically were interested in monitoring, measuring, and observing in detail how wind was flowing across their blades while in production/motion. One key element about wind turbines is their size. Each blade is substantial in size measuring over 30 meter (150 feet) in length. Using cameras to capture images of specific points (micron in size) on such a large object can be quite a challenge, even while in a fixed position, let alone while in motion.

In addition to issues of the scale of the blades involved is that these turbines are outside exposed to weather and even more importantly to highly variable lighting. So not only is the light non controllable but it also varies with every rotation as the blades move toward the ground and again back to the sky and potentially right into full sun. GE’s engineers were well aware of the challenges involved and knew they needed the world’s best expertise to overcome these variables.
 

The result of GE’s worldwide search for a capable imaging partner bought them to Boulder Colorado’s Boulder Imaging (BI). Upon initial discussions Boulder Imaging’s team quickly realized that after the initial challenges were addressed they could exceed the GE team’s needs. BI knew that by obtaining quality measurements they could also provide raw data regarding twist as well as flex. These pieces of data are the holy grail for blade and overall turbine design improvement.

When presented with the possibilities and ultimate delivery of data GE engineers were absolutely ‘blown away’. The twist and flex data combined with the airflow information created a full spectrum picture of what was actually taking place in real time under highly variable conditions. Much of the data was totally unexpected and has since enabled successful redesign of blades for optimal performance.

Boulder Imaging’s president Michael Willis put it this way, “Our work with GE Energy is just another example of how we creatively solve problems. It’s just part of who we are as a company. Our expertise is the utilization of visual technology to provide systems and actionable data to make products, processes and people highly efficiency, saving both time and money.”