Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Comments
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Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Me, too. Rather than simply writing the designers off as "idiots" out of hand, I'll wait to see the results of the FA analysis if it is ever published.Engineering is always a trade off between cost and reliability... If this was intended to be a cost efficient prototype for production--they may have underestimated the forces or even been damaged by a log/other stuff (from local river, pier, floating in from ocean, or even damaged by local boaters/ships dragging anchor, etc.).
Given that the energy in a moving fluid (including air) is based on the cube of the velocity, even a relatively small error in maximum velocity can make a huge difference in the design strength and possible braking design, etc.
Could also be improper material selection (saltwater under pressure combined with flexing of blades, water colder than expected, etc.)... Even manufacturing issues could have also had an impact.
Add that local currents may have changed due to moving sand bars or even the turbine affecting local sediment flows changing the flow rates over time...
It would be interesting to find out what they think the causes of the failures were.
-Bill
If one wants to see spectacular engineering failures, one needs look no farther than the early days of the US space program. The engineers who built those vehicles that blew up on the pad or had to be destroyed shortly after launch were not idiots by any stretch of the imagination. Lessons were learned and they eventually got it right. Even then, random events like O-ring failure and flaking insulation can still sneak in to scuttle a project. At least this time nobody died. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Mistakes like this can -
1) kill a company.
2) kill people
3) kill even a good concept for many years if not forever
4) cost the investors their investment
If anyone works for a company that will tolerate such 'minor' errors would they please publish the company's name - so that the rest of us can avoid those products.
In the world I worked in for 40 years this kind of engineering meant people got fired. There is no acceptable excuse.
This was a small project, OK but that does not allow such 'mistakes'.
Russ -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.Mistakes like this can -
1) kill a company.
2) kill people
3) kill even a good concept for many years if not forever
4) cost the investors their investment
If anyone works for a company that will tolerate such 'minor' errors would they please publish the company's name - so that the rest of us can avoid those products.
In the world I worked in for 40 years this kind of engineering meant people got fired. There is no acceptable excuse.
This was a small project, OK but that does not allow such 'mistakes'.
Russ
I never called it a 'minor' error, BTW, I am just not as certain as you are that it was foreseeable. In the world I have worked in for the past 30 years (and still do), experimental and pilot project failures are not necessarily followed by beheadings. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
OK - We can always agree to disagree.
No one is calling for beheadings but sacking/firing or what ever would be a likely step.
Pilot projects are normally somewhat smaller - where you work out as many screwups as possible on a low cost basis.
My work for many years was in the iron ore direct reduction field where we were constantly trying to improve efficiencies and reduce natural gas consumption. Every day we were working on the design to 'get better'.
If we had ever managed to do something like the failure in question I would have been looking for a new job. The owner was a nice guy but profits came up toward the top of his list.
Russ -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy IssuesOK - We can always agree to disagree.
No one is calling for beheadings but sacking/firing or what ever would be a likely step.
Pilot projects are normally somewhat smaller - where you work out as many screwups as possible on a low cost basis.
My work for many years was in the iron ore direct reduction field where we were constantly trying to improve efficiencies and reduce natural gas consumption. Every day we were working on the design to 'get better'.
If we had ever managed to do something like the failure in question I would have been looking for a new job. The owner was a nice guy but profits came up toward the top of his list.
Russ
Of course, one difference is that you were working in an established industry. The renewable energy field is much more of a frontier with many more unknowns and unknowables in the set of variables; therefore the risk tolerance must be higher. It is more like the US space program in its infancy than it is like the industry you were involved in. I can understand why you would have the opinion where heads would need to roll (figuratively, of course) if such a failure were to occur in your industry, but I don't think you can apply that standard universally. Sometimes we engineers must be free to screw up if we are to learn anything.
Also, please understand that I am not saying that stupid mistakes were NOT made and that sloppy engineering WASN'T responsible for the failure. I have no way of knowing that. All I'm saying is that I do not believe that you (the generalized "you") can look at the results that I have seen and say that the designers were "idiots" out of hand. Maybe you have a more in-depth source of information; in which case I'd like to see it.
Peace,
Gordon Gunn, P.E. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
When the impeller blades fall off the unit you need detailed analysis to say something seriously went wrong? That people missed a step along the way?
If I am taking a whiz and the spray starts to blow back I do not need a weather report or anemometer to tell me I am facing the wrong way.
What I am saying is that such mistakes have to be made in prototypes and the lab stage and covered in CFD studies in the office.
Not in the field. This is nothing to do with NASA - the comparison is invalid.
In the iron ore reduction plants we did extensive research on modifications and process changes before implementing them. Some work was done by the process technology owner in the technical center (worked for them for 20 years) and the balance in the field.
Due to bad choices by the technology company president on a major changes in the process in the mid 80's the company just about went bust. The Japanese owners had to bail the company out.
The disaster was due to 'happy' studies and lab work where people assumed all would be well whereas in the field most everything went sour.
Later when I was running a company which licensed the technology but was really a competitor we were much more careful to assess risks up front - not in the failure study stage. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
From the beginning, one thing we outsiders don't know, is the answer to something that has been floating around in my mind for a while now. We all know how some top executives work, to make a name for themselves - - or not, by dictating from the top down, including dictating their superior knowledge to "lowly" Engineers. Thus it is possible, that top management, or mismanagement, dictated the conditions on the sea bottom to the Engineers and in proper dictatorship fashion, ordered them to design the turbine to meet the conditions that they willed into existence on the ocean floor. Indeed, some of Nasa's past problems were caused by such superior management and kill the messenger attitude.
I'm sure that by virtue of their obscene salary, perks and bonuses, some of the top brass involved in this turbine project, totally understood that their knowledge in all sectors far exceeded that of any Engineer and they would make sure everyone under them knew it.
Food for thought 8) -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Agreed Wayne - It is them (senior management) I am talking about making go away quickly. The management is responsible for either forcing the issue or not understanding what they were in to.
The management of engineering on new concepts/designs is a tricky thing - one has to know enough of each discipline so as to know when he is being handed BS, enough to keep things going in the right direction and definitely has to understand when not to force his will and decisions on his staff.
I am not saying the floor engineer doing the grunt work is at fault - even if that guy did screw up it is the bosses position and responsibility to catch it.
If senior management does not have a very strong engineering background the project has zero possibility of success. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
I've really said all I have to say on this. The temptation to rush to judgement on the basis of limited information is strong. The penalty for doing so, however, is insignificant if you are not involved or liable, so it's no big deal. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy IssuesI've really said all I have to say on this. The temptation to rush to judgement on the basis of limited information is strong. The penalty for doing so, however, is insignificant if you are not involved or liable, so it's no big deal.
WHAT!?!?!? You mean we spent all that time and energy trying to get a good fight going and now you're just going to turn your back and walk away?
Well that sucks
Hahahaha Just kidding ya man, just kidding
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Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
I would be curious what you might say to the pilot when the wings fall off the plane
'Let's not rush to judgment, there may be factors we don't know'. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
And it does happen... Especially with new technologies.
de Havilland CometThe de Havilland DH 106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner to reach production.[N 2] Developed and manufactured by de Havilland at the Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom headquarters, it first flew in 1949 and was a landmark in aeronautical design.[5] It featured an extremely aerodynamically clean design with its four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried into the wings, a low-noise pressurised cabin, and large windows; for the era, it was an exceptionally comfortable design for passengers and showed signs of being a major success in the first year upon launching.
However, a few years after introduction into commercial service, the Comet suffered from catastrophic metal fatigue, which in combination with the pressurisation, caused two well-publicised accidents where the aircraft tore apart in mid-flight. The Comet had to be withdrawn and extensively tested to discover the cause; the first incident had been incorrectly identified as having been caused by an onboard fire. Several contributory factors, such as window installation methodology, were also identified as exacerbating the problem. The Comet was extensively redesigned to eliminate this design flaw. Rival manufacturers meanwhile developed their own aircraft and heeded the lessons learnt from the Comet.
It is actually a very interesting article to read... Even though, at the time, it was the most heavily tested airframe in history--It only took a couple years of commercial service for major structure problems (and airfoil/engine intake issues) to be found.
Would I put oceanic water turbines in the "new technology" category... Probably. Do we know more now than 60+ years ago--Yea...
-BillNear San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Yes Bill, I remember hearing about all the crashes when I was a child, but only a few years ago read the story and learned it was The Comet. What a beautiful aircraft it was, such a sad and tragic story it became, all because of the unforeseen. In the end, the fix was relatively simple, but by then the public wanted nothing more to do with her. From glory to history in in such a short time. And all the lives lost. May they Rest In Peace. -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Excellent example, though others beat me to it. No one suspected that the square windows on the Comet would prove to be its undoing. It took several catastrophic incidents and the loss of many lives before anyone figured it out. Planes are much better designed today as a result of the failure analyses on that aircraft. At least no one died in this case.I would be curious what you might say to the pilot when the wings fall off the plane
'Let's not rush to judgment, there may be factors we don't know'.
It's beginning to look to me like your purpose in dragging this out is to get one up on me. Go ahead, have it your way. Fire all the engineers on the project, I don't care. I still won't agree with you. ;^)
For the record, in case anyone else has not been paying attention, my position is that one cannot look at sketchy results from afar, with the benefit of hindsight, and declare out of hand that the failure occurred because the designers were "idiots". Maybe they were idiots, I don't know, but that is not proven by the observable data, at least none that I have seen.
Maybe it was the fault of a bean counter, not an engineer. "The engineer spec'ed titanium for the impeller blades, but titanium is sooo expensive. I'll just substitute polystyrene in this field here on the procurement spreadsheet. No one will know the difference and we'll save a lot of Canadian dollars, eh."
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UPDATE on Bay of Fundy tidal power project.
Interesting update on the newest project to be tried.
"Deployment of the Atlantis AK-1000 Mark II turbine is slated for the summer of 2012, a process the company says will be ``environmentally benign.'' The turbine is 22 metres tall and has a twin set of 18-metre blades that produce enough electricity to supply 1,000 homes.
Cornelius said the consortium is keen to share information with the other groups conducting tests in the bay.
``We certainly don't pretend to know everything,'' he said. ``This is an incredibly harsh environment. ... We certainly don't expect things to go swimmingly.''
Read the whole story here:
http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9019801.html -
Re: Tide-Powered Turbines Face Familiar Renewable Energy Issues
Image of the latest underwater turbine proposed for the Bay of Fundy:
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2011/02/10/ns-ak-1000.jpg
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