Rapid X-ray for Blade Manufacturing Quality Control and In-Service Maintenance

The Problem: Blades constitute the leading component of maintenance costs in wind turbines. High rates of damage and failure in blades are increasing the cost of ownership of wind energy assets. This hinders DOE’s goal of driving down the cost of wind energy. The two-fold challenges are (a) lack of fast, cost-effective non-destructive inspection (NDI) in the factory prevents the detection of all nonconformities before blades are shipped, and (b) the lack of fast, cost-effective NDI in the field prevents the detection of damage before it evolves to a stage that is expensive to repair or even results in catastrophic failures. The most commonly employed method of NDI today is ultrasonic testing, which requires contact with the part surface and is too slow to serve as a means of cost-effectively scanning an entire blade.The Proposed Solution: A system for performing rapid X-ray non-destructive inspection of wind turbine rotor blades that can be used for quality control (QC) in the blade factory and in-field inspection of blades to identify early-stage damage. X-rays can see through any material and can identify any defect, and they can be used to inspect an entire blade in a single pass. In the factory, we propose to deploy the system on a robot that could scan the length and width of all major components including the shells and webs prior to assembly, and the fully assembled blades to inspect bond integrity. In the field, the system would be deployed via a pair of drones on either side of the blade or on robots supported on suspended platforms. The system will produce 3D imaging similar to a CT scan.Phase 1 Program: The Phase 1 R&D will identify critical damage identification targets for the NDI, will fabricate laboratory sub-articles containing such damage, and will perform laboratory benchmarking of the baseline X-ray inspection equipment against the sub-articles. We will then work towards improving the bench performance. We will also perform an initial assessment of the up-tower performance of the system while assessing the safety of factory and field operation of the X-ray equipment. The Phase 1 work will build the foundation for Phase 2 research during which the bench performance will be fully optimized and the system will be adapted for in-factory and up-tower use. Finally, we will work with our owner/operator customers to assess the commercial requirements for the system (i.e., cost-benefit analyses) in order to help define cost optimization targets for Phase 2.Commercial Applications: Following successful development in Phase 2, Applicant proposes to deploy the X-ray inspection system commercially. End customers would include blade manufacturers, operators of wind farms, and third-party service providers.