The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire

Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by jacquesm on Friday August 05, 2016 @08:07PM (#12236456)

That has a longer story attached to it, another windmill in the background is also on fire. I suspect a fault in the grid coupling causing overvoltage (which would cause the windmill to start acting as a motor, in which case it could easily exceed it's designed maximum RPM, and with the air braking it a fire is pretty much inevitable in that situation, the alternator windings are not made for that situation).

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by josh-wrale on Friday August 05, 2016 @09:18PM (#12236614)

Isn't it possible that whatever might be keeping the foreground turbine from disengaging could also affect the other turbine? Factory defect?

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by jacquesm on Saturday August 06, 2016 @01:07AM (#12237117)

Overvoltage can weld relay contacts together when the relay is opened, even with AC the spark would be considerable. I'm sure that the wreckage was studied extensively to figure out what exactly could have been done to prevent this from happening.

It's one thing to have to design for fickle winds, it's quite another to also have to design for a fickle grid!

Windmills tend to have a destabilizing effect on a grid, if the grid is unable to sink all the power pushed into it the voltage will rise.

Even so, you'd wonder just how much of a rise would be required to cause a catastrophe like this.

Those people filming this are braver than I would have been in the same situation, a mill considerable smaller than this one failed on the island where I lived and the blade was found the next spring. It was embedded several feet down in the soil and about a mile away from the base of the mill!

Dying windmills are dangerous, and to stand there to film it took a lot of courage.

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by vosper on Saturday August 06, 2016 @11:06AM (#12238336)

> Dying windmills are dangerous, and to stand there to film it took a lot of courage

Or they were unaware of the dangers and wanted to shoot a cool video.

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by jacquesm on Saturday August 06, 2016 @12:33PM (#12238689)

The award for the coolest video is called 'Darwin Award'.

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by Retric on Saturday August 06, 2016 @11:55AM (#12238514)

It's likely a design defect coupled with failing breaks and high winds. Modern windmills rotate their blades to keep operating at a range of wind speeds without that winds can apply insane amounts of force which may have lead to over RPMing the generator causing a fire.

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by jacquesm on Saturday August 06, 2016 @12:32PM (#12238686)

Windspeed is quite low, see the speed with which the vortex separates from the tip, so failing brakes have nothing to do with this particular failure.

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Re:The Mesmerizing Math of a Wind Turbine on Fire by Retric on Saturday August 06, 2016 @02:50PM (#12239354)

Every other windmill is stationary, so they are applying breaks. As to wind speed we don't see a when it actually failed, only the current speed which is not exactly slow.

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