A consortium of GE Renewable Energy, LM Wind Power and TNO will construct a wind turbine rotor test rig in the Netherlands. In this test rig, rotor blades can be tested under different conditions. The facility is being built under the three-year STRETCH project, with partial funding from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.Construction of the test facility at LM Wind Power’s WMC Technology Center in Wieringerwerf is expected to be completed in November 2020. The rotor test rig will allow for verification of the strength and the dynamic behaviour of wind turbine rotors under the enormous mechanical loads caused by large blades. Knowledge gained in the project will be used to improve existing design tools. With this rotor rig, the partners will be able to verify in-house the pitch bearings and pitch system that fix the wind turbine blades to the hub and allows pitching blade maximising captured energy while reducing loads on wind turbine.
