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NYC Wind Turbine Failure 9

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The video in the foxnews link shows pieces flying far and wide. A lot of people could have been seriously injured by that debris.



 
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On the way down, the wind turbine also struck an electronic billboard that has been the subject of lawsuits involving the billboard’s owner and the New York City Buildings Department, according to the station.
Click to expand...

One stone, two birds. A costly lawsuit is avoided.
 
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The reaction from the "man on the street" and the politicians (FWIW) hints that the installation was not permitted.

I'd like to know where the machine came from, if it's a certified type, if the manufacturer will support investigation of the failure, etc.

I'm biased against VAWT turbines - this is a typical failure process for the Darrieus type of blade.
Often too long and skinny to resist imbalances such as ice build-up. Just suggesting one possible cause of failure, there. But it's winter in NYC.

Running commentary from Twitter - not fact-checked:
Coop City Times said:
The wind turbine was erected between Dec. 11 and 13, but hasn’t been activated since it went up.
There is an ongoing effort to change the zoning for the property to disallow things like 60-foot illuminated signs and wind turbines but that change hasn’t been made as yet.
Click to expand...

 
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Paul Gipe: In 1961, Louis Vadot described the limitations of the [fixed pitch] Darrieus turbines in a United Nations report on wind power. "Finally", he said, "it is very difficult to design and build a practical furling device to protect these machines in high winds". With horizontal axis turbines there is intrinsic stall, and both blade pitching and nacelle yawing are practicable. With vertical axis turbines...not so much. One is then almost entirely dependent on brakes (and their controls) which experience shows are...limited. This lesson has been re-learnt many, many times.
 
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I am glad someone posted this, I was going to get one of these vertical ones for my farm.

I won't now. it was pretty dodgy economics anyway.
 
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The NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratories) has a wind turbine test site.
They have tested many VAWT's at their site, and many fail. So many, many VAWT's fail...

[URL unfurl="true" said:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/47072.pdf[/URL]]
The mechanical components of the test turbine were installed during the week of March
17, 2008, and the inverter was installed during the week of May 5, 2008. The duration
test began on May 7, 2008 following inverter installation and commissioning. The
commissioning checklist from the installation can be found in Appendix B. The initial
duration test was conducted over a period of approximately four months from May 7,
2008 to September 13, 2008. The test did not meet the requirement in the standard for
at least 6 months of operation.
On September 13, 2008, the turbine experienced an inverter failure. This likely occurred
because the parameters in the inverter were set to optimize power performance. This
may have led to overheating of the electrical components and eventual failure, see
Figure 5. The turbine was subsequently inoperable until October 7, 2008 when the
inverter was replaced. The parameters in this inverter were set for normal power
production. Since an inverter failure is considered a major failure by the Standard, the
duration test was restarted on October 7, 2008.

On October 14, 2008, Mariah Power requested that the test team stop and/or lower the
turbine in winds above 40 mph (approximately 18 m/s) due to a potential problem with
the top shaft. NREL complied with this request, but determined that the turbine would not
be able to achieve the 90% required operational time fraction. As a result, the second
duration test was terminated on October 14, 2008. Because the turbine operated for only
one week between the test restart and termination, those results are not reported here.
Click to expand...

Paul Gipe [URL unfurl="true" said:
http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=551[/URL]]
Mariah and its Windspire will go down in history as another novelty Vertical Axis Wind Turbine that was doomed from the start. Tall and slender, it was, if nothing else, distinctive. Unfortunately, a tall and slender wind turbine mounted on a short tower is still a wind turbine on a short tower. Architectural ornamentation alone is not enough of a market to support a wind turbine manufacturer as Mariah learned to its regret.
Click to expand...

 
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From the video, it appear that the turbine was spinning too fast and the centrifugal force was too much for the blades which broke apart.
 
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I read sometime in the last five or years that China has a lot of these type of turbines, so I suspect that the whole machine or parts of it were manufactured in China.
 
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They are all over the place in Chinese market places such as a Alibaba and AliExpress.

They are springing up all over the place around where I am as well. Lighting systems from childrens play areas seem to be a favourite linked with a solar panel and a battery .

For example this one.

 
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The particular type that failed looks very sketchy - thin metal blades subject to increasing bending forces and probably alternating rotational forces within the blade itself.

Like figure 1 in the attached
I wonder if they couldn't make it so the top of the turbine was variable in height causing the blades to be less bent and hence exert less torque?



Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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The wind turbines have two mechanisms for preventing overspeed. They can feather the blades to stall the turbine and they can apply breaks. If you see a turbine on fire or smoking, chances are the brakes weren't able to stop the turbine. I saw a video once of two technicians that got stuck on top of the nacelle. The brake lost it grip and started the nacelle on fire and the men couldn't get to the ladder without going through the flames. They both jumped to their deaths. Some techs get harnesses that they can use to lower themselves so they are not stuck in or on top of the nacelle if it starts on fire.
 
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At least old worn-out turbine blades don't have to be encased in lead-lined, concrete caskets before they're considered safe enough to be placed in a storage facility.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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