4th BLADESAVE Horizon 2020 Technical Meeting in Cambridge

Fri, 31 May 2019

4th BLADESAVE Horizon 2020 Technical Meeting in Cambridge - header image

The 4th technical meeting of the BladeSave consortium members was hosted by TWI International Network at their headquarters in Cambridge, on the 28th of May 2019.

The meeting started with a review of the current status of the project (activities, deliverables, milestones, etc.). It continued with an examination of the BladeSave system’s demonstration phase, reiterating the challenges the team faced, as well as the solutions used to tackle the problems. The consortium discussed and agreed upon a set of actions to be taken in order to improve the system’s stability and reliability.

The second area of focus was the full blade destructive testing plan, which involves producing structural damage to the blade to test the system's detection abilities. The testing is programmed to take place at a facility in Denmark. The partners took into consideration all the measures necessary for the optimization of the destructive testing results and for the proper collection of data essential for post-analysis processes.

The partners went on to discuss the issues encountered after the installation of the BladeSave system on EWT turbine, in November 2018. The SmartSonic system laser failure, CUDA platform crush, and AE processing software errors brought about a delay in the start of the system demonstration until January 2019, at which time additional glitches arose. Smart Fibres, ASSIST Software, and TWI International Network, were designated by the consortium to lead the mitigation of these issues.

The partners reviewed the business activities carried out so far and the status of the distribution agreements for the BladeSave system. In line with the product marketing strategy, BladeSave will be promoted at the Husum Wind 2019 trade fair. The task of developing promotional materials (video presentation, logos, posters, flyers, brochures, booth) was delegated to Renewable Advice and ASSIST Software.

The consortium wrapped up the meeting with a presentation of the project’s financial status and with plans for the next technical meeting which is to take place in August 2019, either in Brussels or in Winchester.

The BladeSave Project is co-funded by the Horizon 2020 program of the European Union and submitted under the H2020-FTIPilot-2016 Innovation Action call, with project ID 760353.