Fire and Electrical Safety Risk Assessment During Wind Turbine Operations

Abstract

The goal of this project is to assess the risk of fires and electrical failures in wind turbine systems. Due to the combination of the environment and the electrical systems used in wind turbines, overheating, insulation failures, lightning strikes, short circuits, fires, and loss of equipment happen. This is mitigated through the systematic evaluation of risk, looking past site inspections to collect data, test in situ, test hardness, and perform ultrasonic and metallographic analyses of the tower’s main components. This is to assist in the identification of material deterioration and the microstructures, and zones of potential failure due to overheating, or the electrical failures described. Finding no significant mechanical defect is important. This is true regarding hardness and ultrasonic testing. Microstructural assessment did locate deteriorated material in confined inactive zones that appeared to be thermally relaxed. This signifies beginning material weakness that could lead to failure if operational stress is maintained. Additional advanced fire risk mitigations that could be implemented would be no proper fire risk mitigation. Overall, this project highlights the significant interdependence of the long-term operational reliability, and the wind turbines operational and fire safety reliability.