On Power-Up today, a pre-tensioning mechanism for concrete towers, Vestas' idea for reducing sway in towers, and the patent behind the Smooth Criminal performances. Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Welcome to Power Up, the Uptime podcast focused on the new, hot off the press technology that can change the world. Follow along with me, Allen Hall, and IntelStor's Phil Totaro, as we discuss the weird, the wild, and the game changing ideas that will charge your energy future. Allen Hall: Alright, our first idea comes from the brain of Max Boegl Wind AG, and it is a really unique patent. When you deal with concrete towers, like you see on Nordex turbines, some Acciona turbines, where they stack the concrete cylinders on one another. Have you ever asked yourself, how do those keep from tipping over and everything landing on the ground? Well, there's a series of tension cables inside of there that keeps those things stacked up properly and provides pressure the whole time. That is a really tricky system. And this patent idea, which is a pretension element, It creates these, this mechanism to provide tension and simply on these concrete towers so they don't fall over and don't come apart like kids blocks. And Phil, this one I think is being used, right? I would assume a this technique, because it's really unique and simple and effective, has to be out in service already. Philip Totaro: Yeah, and we believe it's being used on some of their hybrid concrete and steel tube towers. So just for everybody's benefit too, this is kind of a pretensioned tower anchor concept where you know, the, the benefit of that is, is if you, if you want to be able to control the amount of, of load and deflection pre tensioning can kind of help facilitate that versus post tensioning something where once you've already poured concrete and it's hardened, there's only so much kind of post tensioning you can do without overstressing either the tendons or the concrete itself, which, which could weaken it. So pre tensioning this allows you to You know, have the, the correct amount of tension in the tendons and, and the bolt the anchor bolts. And then when you're laying in your concrete it's, it's going to help facilitate the, the strength and reliability of that connection. Now, what's also kind of fascinating about this is that we haven't, we've seen, kind of pre tensioning and post tensioning used in different areas of, of the turbine before where some of the companies, Vestas, I think, tried a a post tensioned tower with die cables and things like that. So, there, there have been companies that have tried different arrangements and techniques before but it was never really widely adopted, but Max Bogle, obviously has the, the pedigree in, in wind energy to have this more widely adopted and the hybrid towers that they've been deploying. I believe number more than like three or four hundred at this point that they've got deployed mostly throughout Europe, I believe. So, this is fantastic technology and, and again, great to see that somebody's, capturing IP on a technology that they're actually rolling out commercially and, and, getting the commercial benefit out of leveraging. Joel Saxum: I think an important note here, pre tensioning. So just to give example if you're not familiar with concrete pre tensioning or post tensioni...
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Dec 19 202424 mins