The Danish firm claims the exciter is the largest of its kind in the world, and can accommodate wind turbine blades up to 130 metres long.
Turbine manufacturers have designed and produced increasingly large wind turbines in recent years in an effort to improve efficiency and reduce overall costs.
For example in the UK, deployment of US manufacturer GE’s 12-14MW Halliade-X turbine with 107-metre long blades will soon begin at the 2400MW Dogger Bank A & B
offshore project.
GE and other manufacturers including Chinese OEMs MingYang and CSSC are currently producing larger offshore wind turbines with up to 18MW capacities.
There are meanwhile expectations among industry stakeholders that wind turbines will reach even higher power ratings of up to 22MW by the end of the decade.
Consequently there is a need for facilities and devices that can test the structural integrity of the largest offshore wind turbine blades and put them under the kinds of strains they can face in the harsh environments of the open ocean.
R&D Test Systems said the new dual-axis exciter is approximately 40% larger in size than their previous model and can apply 240kN of force into the blade with an excitation power of 420kW.
The company added that the new set up would shorten test times at the WTTC by conducting flap and edgewise fatigue tests without the need to readjust the set up.
“As a testing facility, we must be ready for what the OEMs will develop next. And with this test equipment, we will have the setup to meet the requirements, improve the testing quality, and simultaneously shorten the test time significantly,” Rahul Yarala, executive director at WTTC, said.