Investigation of Fire damaged Wind turbine Tower for Structural Integrity

Present work is a reporting of the case study for damage assessment of wind turbine tower, caused by accidental fire of the power cable in the tower of 2.2 MW wind turbine at a wind farm site in India. This work reports the methodology adopted for investigating the effect of thermal cycles caused due to accidental fire on the tower structure. Non-destructive testing methods such as, ultrasonic flaw detection, hardness testing and in-situ metallography is used for assessment of the fire affected components of tower structure of wind turbine. Appropriate interpretation of test results enabled us to recommend replacement of the damaged components of the wind turbine tower, while the unaffected components of tower are found safe to use. Further, it is observed that localized heating has affected the weld seam and plates of shell in some selected area only.