Wind Turbine Shearography Robotic Inspection on-blade system
SheaRIOS is a solution for the Wind Turbine Blade (WTB) inspection industry.
It enables easier, faster and more accurate inspection utilising robotics and shearogra-phy, a high-quality method that is applied outside of the laboratory for the fi rst time. A deployment platform will ascend on the wind turbine tower and deploy a work climber on the base of the blade. The climber will move on the blade by means of air-suction and carry out inspection with a shearography kit on a cantilever. The deployment platform will also act as the power and data link..
Operational modeling is done by EDF.
Beeing the end-users they drive this Innovation Action. Preliminary testing and validation of the market-readiness of SheaRIOS robotic application will take place at their site, both on-shore (EDF R&D) and off -shore (EDF Renewables)..
Savings and benefits.
Based on our analysis, the non-destructive testing service provider would save 1,055 € per wind turbine inspection and payback of SheaRIOS investment will be achieved after 152 inspections, or the fi rst 2 years. The wind farm operator will save more than 1 full day per wind turbine inspection, because of the reduced inspection time, which directly translates to less revenue lost due to idle wind turbines.
