SBIR/STTR Research Award
In-line Inspection of Welds used for Wind Turbine Tower Assembly
Award amount
$100,000Program and phase
SBIR · Phase IAward year
2009Award details
- Awarding agency
- Department of Energy
- Branch
- Not reported
- Recipient company
- INTELLIGENT OPTICAL SYSTEMS, INC.
- Proposal award date
- Not reported
- Contract end date
- Not reported
- UEI
- NLDHG92SMX37
- Solicitation number
- DE-PS02-08ER08-34
- Topic code
- 20 a
Research abstract
Current manufacturing processes can not meet the worldwide demand for wind turbines. One of the bottlenecks involves the stringent inspection requirements for the welds used for wind turbine tower assembly. Current inspection techniques, which are labor intensive, are applied after the process is complete. This project will develop a laser ultrasonic technique for the inspection of the welds used in tower assembly. The technique will be a completely noncontact process, ideally suited for automated in-line inspection. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The proposed inspection technique should enable the manufacturing of wind turbines at lower cost and increase the number of towers available each year. Related techniques also could be used for the inspection of turbine blades
Technology keywords
Not reported
Other awards by this recipient
Verified by the same UEI. These are other public SBIR/STTR award pages, not a merged company record.
- Laser Ultrasonic Testing for In-Space Welding Environments
- Reliable, Low-cost, and Compact Real-time Ammonia Monitor for Enclosed Livestock Facilities
- In-situ, Robust, Low Size, Weight, and Power Trace-gas Detector
- Advanced Laser Ultrasonic Sensor for Fuel Rod Characterization
- In-Reactor Laser Ultrasonic Sensor for Fuel Rod Pressure and Fission Gas
Awards with the same topic code
Verified by an exact topic code match. This is not a text-similarity match.
- PRISMS - Profile Resolving In-Situ Soil Moisture Sensor
- A Wireline Cone Penetrometer System for Characterization of Radionuclides including Technetium-99
- Near Net Shape Consolidation of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Alloy Powders
- Enhanced Fiber Optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing for Reservoir Imaging
- Low-Cost, High-Performance Hybrid Membranes for Redox Flow Batteries
Research funding history
264 SBIR/STTR records share this UEI (1998–2025). Reported award amounts total $77,140,779. Reported amounts are not federal obligations.
Phases: Phase I, Phase II
Agencies: Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture