As a market-leading, IECRE-accredited wind turbine blade testing facility, we work tirelessly towards increasing the reliability and efficiency of the longest blades in the world.
“By using ORE Catapult’s facilities and expertise, we will be in a better position to adapt our technology in a shortened time, reduce unplanned maintenance, increase availability and power output, while introducing new features to meet customers’ demands.”
John Lavelle
President & CEO of GE Renewable Energy’s offshore wind business
A world-leading facility, capable of testing offshore wind rotor blades designed for +10MW turbine devices.
A facility for R&D blade test programmes and upscaling new and innovative blade technologies up to 50m in length.
State-of-the-art facility for simulating and analysing erosion of wind turbine blades during operation.
Live, operating blades enabling real-time blade analysis and feedback to support research, testing and innovative technology development.
Using highly advanced fatigue analysis software, reducing safety factors by two compared to basic fatigue analysis methods is used to design bi-axial fatigue tests that are substantially more representative of real-life operation than single-axis testing:
Monitor and characterise blade deformation extremely accurately as the blade is loaded in a static test. As passive load alleviation technologies are adopted for longer blades, it is critical to validate nonlinear beam models used to represent the blade.
ORE Catapult’s R&D AS rain erosion test rig tests the performance of wind turbine blade leading edge protection systems for blade erosion resistance. The rain erosion test rig is available as part of a suite of blade erosion research and evaluation capability, including disdrometer rain size data and a composite laboratory.
Operating a 7MW offshore demonstration turbine with 83.5m blades, ORE Catapult can demonstrate, analyse and understand live blade performance, as well as apply client technology and innovation.
With materials specialists and a materials analysis laboratory on site, ORE Catapult offers turbine materials consultancy, including development and support of novel materials test programmes for Blades, Electrical cables and Coatings. A range of coating, polymer and electrical testing and analysis can be performed.
IECRE Accreditation: In February 2019, the Catapult was awarded a certificate of acceptance to participate in the “IECRE-IEC System for Certification to Standards relating to Equipment for use in Renewable Energy Applications”. The certificate relates to full-scale structural testing of rotor blades: IEC 61400-23.
UKAS Accreditation: ISO/IEC 17025:2017
Steve Robertson
Head of Business Development
+44 (0) 7872 836180
