Organization Name:China Agricultural University

Project introduction:

Wind energy is one major sustainable clean energy. In 2010, China's wind energy capacity ranked No. 1 across the world. By the end of 2021, wind turbine capacity reached 330 million kilowatts. With the increase of wind turbine life-cycle and the aging of components, wind turbine inspection becomes a key factor in the sustainable development of wind power. At present, manual detection and UAV detection are two commonly used methods; However, there are many disadvantages such as low efficiency, poor accuracy, large potential casualties, and inability to carry out preventive inspection.

This project developed a wind turbine tower permanent magnet wheel climbing NDT robot, which can stably adsorb on the tower body of wind turbine, and freely climbing and moving on the surface of the tower body. Using equipped phased array ultrasonic (PAUT)device, the robot carries out automatic non-destructive testing (NDT) for internal cracks and defects of the tower body. detection data and images are transmitted to the ground operation and maintenance center in a real-time pattern. This project enabled automatic and intelligent in-situ inspecting for wind turbines.

The promotion and application of the project will bring great economic and social benefits to the wind power industry. This project possessescompleteintellectual property (IP), and therefore has broad market prospects in China and around the world.