Offshore Wind Install Method, LM Vibration Reduction

This week on Power-Up, a method for installing offshore wind
turbines with a substructure with built in containers that can be
transported easily, and LM Windpower's way of reducing some of the
vibrations from stationary wind blades. Plus some over-the-top body
armor... Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update
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https://www.windaustralia.com Allen Hall: Welcome to Power Up, the
Uptime Podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology
that can change the world. Follow along with me, Allen Hall, and
IntelStor's Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the
game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. Phil, our
first idea is assigned to Grant Prideco and it's a method for
installing an offshore wind turbine and a substructure, and this
idea It is rather unique in offshore wind in that it has a
substructure in built in containers that can be transported
relatively easily. And so, and the way it's described is like a
vertical garage. when the, when the tower sections arrive at its
destination. Once on site, the tower is raised straight up from its
container using a winch. And this eliminates a need for some of the
installation vessels, which are so expensive and what everybody's
trying to get away from right now. And you can't find them. So
there's a number of really interesting concepts. that reduce that,
and this is one of them. So it lets the simplest ships install
towers and install the nacelles and blades much closer at sea level
before a final tower lift is done. So it does change the complexity
of offshore wind dramatically. I haven't seen this implemented yet,
but it seems like Philip Totaro: it will be soon. Well, it, it very
well could be, considering the push towards larger turbine sizes
offshore and as you mentioned, the desire to, eliminate a lot of
extra reliance on large crane vessels and installation vessels. But
the idea itself, you mentioned it's currently assigned to Grand
Pride Co., but it was originally conceived by National Oil Well
Varco, NOV that's actually got a pretty lengthy history at this
point, obviously in oil and gas, but also in offshore wind
including installation vessel involvement and concepts like this,
they've, they've been patenting ideas for, for good on 10 years
now. And what is kind of interesting and unique about this, as you
mentioned, is imagine, a turban, where like the blades are all kind
of folded down. The upper section of the tower is kind of folded
down in and is telescoped down inside the lower sections of, of the
tower and even down into, a portion of the transition piece and
monopile. And basically what they're saying is you can put the
monopile in place and then take this thing out. Pick it and plop it
down and then just have like this internal winch system to, to
pluck out all the different bits and pieces of, of the turban
inside, you would still have to do a nacelle pick. So I think it's,
maybe not quite as a cost and time efficient as, as everyone might
think, but it is fewer sorties by the vessels themselves carrying
and ferrying components from port to project site. So that is
something that, that could prove to be useful in the future. And,
and we'll see, if, if they're gonna, if NOV is gonna, continue to
push this out and, and drive this technology into the state of
commercial use. Well, our second Allen Hall: idea comes from LM
Windpower, and again, this patent and this idea seems like
something that will be used, or if it hasn't already, will be used
relatively shortly. And this idea is about reducing some of the
vibrations from stationary wind blades. And offshore in particular,
as you're assembling a turbine, before it's been turned on and
operating, it's just sitting there. There could be a lot of stress
on the turbine itself from vibration on the blade just sitting in
the wind. And what this system from LM does is it just kind of
wraps onto the blade and reduces that vibration. dramatically. So
all the vortex induced vibration that can happen at 90 degree
angles and some stall induced vibration that happens it reduces it
dramatically. And then when you're ready to turn the turbine on,
you pull this device off and then you can get rolling. So it's for
that sort of transitory period before commissioning when the
turbine is just not operating. And we have seen a number of blade
problems. Because of this, and this patent was applied to, what, in
2022? And it makes you think that LM has been really behind the
scenes trying to fix a problem that they've seen on the engineering
side for a little while, Phil. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and, and what's
kind of fascinating about all that is when, when they've originally
conceived of this was probably back sometime in, in 2021, if they
got around to kind of filing for their patent in 2022 so they've,
they've been kind of noodling on this for almost, three years.
Yeah. And considering the fact that, some of their blades have had
issues during installation, again, whether the root cause of it was
down to a manufacturing defect or whatever, what shook the blade
apart and caused it to fray and split from the turbine was this
vortex induced oscillations that happened when the turbine was in
park position while they were still installing and commissioning,
adjacent turbines or, or that turbine. And so it, one wonders,
because this is kind of, I'll call it maybe a bit more of an
offbeat idea in, in terms of you wouldn't have necessarily thought
to use a solution like this. But this is akin to if you've seen
companies that have wrapped the, a little spiral thing on the top
of a wind turbine tower, particularly offshore when they're going
to install it, it's to, to accomplish almost exactly the same
thing. It's to preclude the buildup of a vortex induced oscillation
on the tower. So why a concept like this wasn't being used is Kind
of a question I've got but the, the reality of it is at least
they're, they're thinking along these lines and they have these
solutions in their back pocket. I, I actually hope that solutions
like this are, are brought to bear because it's certainly a lot
more expensive for, for however much a system like this would cost
to have and the, the pain in the butt that it might be to have to,
put it on and take it off every time you're doing. A, a turbine
commissioning, it certainly costs a lot less than having to replace
blades and, and slow down or stop, commissioning of a, of an
offshore wind project, which we've now seen what the commercial
impact of that can be substantially more expensive than,
implementing this little kind of inflatable system that, that wraps
around the blade and, and helps create a shape that's going to
deflect a lot more of the those vortex induced oscillations. Allen
Hall: Our last idea comes from Katherine Rutherford, and if you've
ever seen the John Wick movie series, there's a lot of ballistic
armor there. You never see it slow down John Wick. He can do all
kinds of karate moves and sword play and while firing a weapon and
the body armor moves with him, which always seems like an
impossibility. However, Katherine Rutherford has come up with this
ballistic resistant body covering where it does maintain the body
armor. Mobility, and the key features include a torso portion with
front and black plates that securely connect and an innovative cup
shaped groin section with leg openings and a detachable neck guard.
Now, this is the only place I would see this used, Phil, as in some
sort of assassin group like a John Wick group. This is the only
place I would even imagine this being used, which makes me wonder
where the idea came from. Did it come straight from Hollywood?
Maybe it did. But if it does work, there's other applications for
this, for Philip Totaro: sure. Alan, given the popularity of the
film The Day of the Jackal right now, considering they just kind of
redid a TV series about it, which is actually not that bad, by the
way maybe that's where they were going with it. The reason I, I
wanted to throw this in was the, the general concept of this is
kind of play. It's almost like plate armor. When, when we have like
Kevlar body armor today that can deform and deflect the fact that
they have introduced this concept that it's kind of a hybrid
between like plate armor and Kevlar it's a bit of a, it's a bit of
an odd, you know, an odd choice to me and, and, on top of it, the,
the picture that they've included in the patent just looks a bit
amusing. As, as many of the the talented artists though they are
they sometimes come up with some some very strange looking ideas
and inventions and ways of expressing them. So, I don't know, this
one, eh, if people are gonna want or frankly need plate armor and a
codpiece, then it sounds like this is the right idea for you. But I
can't imagine too many people in today's day and age that are gonna
need it.