Wind Turbine WSEs: What’s in them?

Wind Turbine WSEs: What’s in them?

The 20th to the 24th of July is Wind Turbine Inspector week at WILKINSON COUTTS. We’re getting a great response for our first course and will be posting snippets throughout the week. Check them out!

“But what’s in a Wind Turbine ‘Structural’ WSE?” you ask.

Here’s four common questions we’ve been asked:

Question 1: Should there be a structure diagram to inspect against?

Answer: Yes. WT towers and structural bits are subject to tension, bending, torsion, shear, buckling stresses and fatigue in specific areas. Inspectors are not designers, so need to be guided where to look for various defects.

Question 2: If a tower lift is installed, do you need a separate ‘LOLER’ WSE for it?

Answer: It’s not essential; you can cover LOLER points within a more general ‘structural’ WSE if you prefer. It depends on who is doing the inspection.

Question 3: Are all machinery parts excluded from a structural WSE?

Answer: No. A structural inspection WSE should cover accessible components such as yaw rings, brakes, machine mountings, hoists etc. Don’t confuse structural inspection with functional testing though.

Question 4: Should WT WSEs be ‘minimum compliance’ or ‘technically prescriptive’?

Answer: That’s up to the WT owner-user to decide what they want. In the WILKINSON COUTTS WT Inspector Cert course, we cover all the options and teach the content of three WSE types:

Type 1: Generic ‘statutory’ compliance WSEs

Type 2: Open scope technical WSEs

Type 3: Full prescriptive WSEs

If you don’t know what these definitions mean, let us know.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the Wilkinson Coutts Wind Turbine Inspector Cert, contact Paul Wilkinson or Craig Coutts via these two emails:

[email protected]

[email protected]

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