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Giant Wind Turbines Keep Mysteriously Falling Over. This Shouldn't Be Happening.
Popular Mechanics ^ | JAN 23, 2023 | Tim Newcomb

Posted on 02/02/2023 9:56:52 AM PST by Leaning Right

The taller the wind turbine, the harder they fall. And they sure are falling.

Wind turbine failures are on the uptick, from Oklahoma to Sweden and Colorado to Germany, with all three of the major manufacturers admitting that the race to create bigger turbines has invited manufacturing issues, according to a report from Bloomberg.

(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: globalwarminghooax; howdareyou; turbine; windpower; windturbines
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To: MikeSteelBe

O/T, but I remember the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota. The engineers didn’t factor in the added weight of new asphalt on the bridge.


61 posted on 02/02/2023 10:40:12 AM PST by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: null and void
"No relation to the sacred mRNA vaccines, wind towers have been falling over since the middle ages..."

I didn't know they had vaccinations in the middle ages. /s/

62 posted on 02/02/2023 10:40:14 AM PST by fini
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To: Leaning Right

Burned down, fell over and then sank into the swamp.


63 posted on 02/02/2023 10:40:59 AM PST by OSHA (The Constitution is a small box carefully crafted to keep government in. We let it escape.)
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To: Paladin2
It’s just another example of the existential risk of the Climate Emergency.

I have a great idea. Place them offshore where the salt spray will degrade them quicker. And there are loads of offshore wind projects here and in Europe.

64 posted on 02/02/2023 10:41:06 AM PST by dennisw ("You don't have to like it. You just have to do it")
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To: pas

😜............................


65 posted on 02/02/2023 10:42:13 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Rennes Templar
That’s engineering failures.

I don't think it's all that mysterious. My uneducated guess is that they fall over in high winds because the wind blades fail to feather and the resulting wind load on the tower exceeds design limits.

Same reason a lot of windmills go up in flames, they overspeed the gearbox and generator because of a failure in the wind blade feathering system.

66 posted on 02/02/2023 10:43:06 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: Leaning Right
Could be a clue here. Babcock went super woke in hiring. If they'll hire such dolts for nuclear subs...


67 posted on 02/02/2023 10:44:53 AM PST by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee

Apparently they never heard of easy-outs.


68 posted on 02/02/2023 10:49:51 AM PST by rednesss (fascism is the union,marriage,merger or fusion of corporate economic power with governmental power )
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To: Leaning Right

Gophers


69 posted on 02/02/2023 10:53:27 AM PST by Old Yeller
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To: rednesss; discostu
Old windmill design pattern:

New windmill design pattern:

I’m guessing the new pattern isn’t quite as stable.

(Hat tip to discostu, and his post #42)

70 posted on 02/02/2023 10:53:34 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Leaning Right

Who knows maybe God doesn’t like them


71 posted on 02/02/2023 10:53:37 AM PST by rottweiller_inc (inter canem et lupum)
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To: KTM rider

Check out #18. The towers themselves are failing, not the footers or the bolts.


72 posted on 02/02/2023 10:56:34 AM PST by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Thunder 6
I assume the laws of physics play a part in tearing these beasties apart.

They do ... those laws are made of iron, written by God Himself. They WILL BE OBEYED, and they don't care how anybody feels about it.

73 posted on 02/02/2023 11:00:58 AM PST by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Yo-Yo

There is about 30,000 lbs of scrap copper in there somewhere.


74 posted on 02/02/2023 11:02:19 AM PST by oldasrocks (quew)
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To: Leaning Right

It’s like Tinkerbell. As more people express their waning belief in Globull Warming, the Windmills weaken and DIE.


75 posted on 02/02/2023 11:09:39 AM PST by left that other site (Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.)
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To: Leaning Right

Racism. The turbines are white.


76 posted on 02/02/2023 11:12:24 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (“Racist” is the new “Nazi”.)
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To: MikeSteelBe; discostu; Yo-Yo

IMH (mech eng) opinion, they underestimated the wind and resulting bending moment where the base of the wind turbine entered the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not quite..... I’ve been analyzing failures of IWTs for years and have seen many specific modes of failures... at least a dozen unique categories. However, the category that is the most common is fatigue... this can happen in many locations on an IWT and cause a failure but one of the most common locations is with the bolts in the tower flange sections. Take a look at the third picture at post 18... See how the flanges (top and bottom) have separated completely with almost zero damage? It almost looks like all the bolts have simply and simultaneously evaporated and in fact, they have... While the vibration due to the rotating mass could have had a role in the fatigue damage of the bolts, it more likely is just the result of the tower swaying in the wind and putting the bolts through endless cycles of varying stress. Then one bolt goes and puts the rest under even more stress.... however, since they all have been put through the same number of cycles, the remaining bolts are also near the end of their fatigue life and with a bit of an increase in wind that adds a bit more stress, they all start to pop just like popcorn... and down comes the tower. I could show many pictures just like this one... some where the separation at a flange is complete and some just like the picture 3 where it’s still hanging on by a a few bolts that act as the hinge point as it topples over.


77 posted on 02/02/2023 11:12:49 AM PST by hecticskeptic
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To: rktman

“Correct. They should be being dismantled, not falling over willy nilly. They are corrupting my “view shed”. Remember when someone could stop a project by saying that?”

The world is 75% water and we are building windmills. We have technology to move fluids thousands of miles, technology to remove saline from water and technology to capture sunlight and convert it to electricity. And they are building windmills.


78 posted on 02/02/2023 11:16:17 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (“Racist” is the new “Nazi”.)
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To: hecticskeptic

Wind turbine failures are on the uptick...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I suspect that the reason they are ‘on the uptick’ is simply because the number of them is always increasing and because fatigue is a cycle-dependent aspect to failures. Thus the longer they run, the closer they get towards their fatigue limit.


79 posted on 02/02/2023 11:16:32 AM PST by hecticskeptic
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To: MtnClimber

This is what happens when you stop using that racist math invented by all those dead white guys.


80 posted on 02/02/2023 11:16:38 AM PST by nhbob1
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