MISTRAS helps to maximize the performance and uptime of renewable wind energy assets through a unique, integrated approach to wind turbine protection. This encompasses real-time monitoring, comprehensive data services, advanced inspections, maintenance and repair, and at-height solutions.
MISTRAS’ blade and turbine services help ensure that your wind components operate efficiently, maximize safety and uptime, and remain in peak operating condition.
Our real-time monitoring solutions — through the innovative wind blade monitor, Sensoria™ — enable blade integrity data to be gathered as soon as damages occur and instantly send it to a web-based data portal, where operators have complete visibility to their blade integrity data on a fleetwide, sitewide, or individual blade basis. We perform field inspections along with maintenance and repair services that are quick, cost-effective, and safe, utilizing rope access technicians and drone inspections for inspections and repairs of at-height assets. We also perform lab testing on newly fabricated and existing components to help ensure composite integrity prior to manufacturing, as well as determining the root cause of damages that occur during operations.
MISTRAS' asset protection solutions for wind turbine assets help you make timely, informed maintenance decisions that help maximize the safety and uptime of your wind assets.
Wind Turbine Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) Systems, Software, and Services
Our blade monitoring solution, Sensoria™, is a 24/7/365 blade monitor that remotely detects and reports blade damages. Acoustic Emission (AE) technology measures defect growth on blades, allowing our experts to analyze trends across sites and specific blades.
MISTRAS’ system for blade monitoring helps to identify:
- High Energy Impacts
- Lightning Strikes
- Ruptures to the Blade Skin or Formation of Perforations
- Loss of Bonding
Our customers have full transparency into the monitoring process, having direct access to the web-based Sensoria Insights data portal where they can view the current status of blades in real time. This portal allows decisions to be made quickly and effectively when damages are detected.
Wind Turbine Inspection and Composite Testing Services
MISTRAS’ wind turbine inspection services ensure that your assets operate safely and efficiently while remaining free of damages that affect their performance and generating capacity. We access a variety of wind turbine components for field inspections with cost-effective, quick, and safe at-height access methods, and we also perform lab testing on components.
Advanced Wind Turbine Blade Inspection Services
Blades are often the most at-risk component for potential damages on a wind turbine. They can be challenging to inspect due to their size, at-height locations, and the sheer number of blades in a fleet or site. MISTRAS helps maintain the safety and helps maximize uptime for wind energy turbine blades through a variety of inspection services, including:
- Ground-Based Photography – Our High-Resolution Telephoto Lens Captures Images of Turbine Blades from the Ground to Properly Assess Necessary Maintenance and Risk.
- Internal and External Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Inspection:
- Ultrasonic Testing (UT)
- Visual Testing (VT)
- Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT)
- Lightning Protection System Inspection & Testing
- Hands-On Blade Inspections
- Blade Damage Root Cause Analysis
- Digital Scanning of Blades
Wind Turbine Maintenance, Mechanical, and Rope Access Services
MISTRAS has the capabilities to provide maintenance and mechanical services, helping ensure that damages discovered through inspections or real-time monitoring are remedied as quickly as possible to minimize turbine downtime and reduce safety hazards.
We keep costs and downtime to a minimum by providing multi-disciplined rope access technicians that perform both inspection and maintenance services, including:
- Bolt Torque Testing and Tension
- Bolt Replacement and Extraction
- Bus Bar Repair and Replacement
- Ladder Repair and Replacement
- Deck Replacement
- Yaw Lip Seal Replacements
- Blade Shroud Replacements
- Cable Slack Repair
- Bearing Seal Replacement
- Cleaning or the tower, nacelle, and blades
Wind Turbine Blade Repair Services
Wind turbine blades are routinely exposed to extreme environmental and operating conditions. Manufacturing defects and the stress they are routinely subjected to during normal operations can combine to accelerate blade degradation and failure. Other damages we inspect for and repair include:
- Leading-Edge Erosion
- Bond-Line Failures
- Moisture Intrusion
- Transportation
- Lightning Damage
- Fatigue Cracking
- Dry Glass
MISTRAS’ highly-trained rope access technicians provide advanced inspection and maintenance services that keep wind turbine blades durable and reliable. Our goal is to keep your renewable wind energy components spinning safely and efficiently.
Our blade repair services include:
- Aerodynamic Profile Upgrades (VGs, Spoilers, Winglets)
- Construction, Assembly, and Installation Support
- Cleaning or Cosmetic and Structural Blade Repair
- Installation of Leading Edge Protection Systems
- Leading-Edge Erosion
- Lightning Strikes
- Split Trailing Edge
- Spoiler Removal and Installation
Wind Turbine Tower Repair Services
MISTRAS’ tower services ensure that wind turbine towers have solid structural integrity while also maintaining a clean and attractive appearance, including:
- Cleaning
- Coating/Painting and Blasting
- Weld Inspection
- Caulking
- Dent Removal
Wind Turbine Nacelle Maintenance and Repair Services
Nacelles serve the important role of housing the generating components of wind turbines. MISTRAS’ nacelle services ensure that critical turbine componentry remains efficiently covered and protected, along with improving the physical appearance of the nacelle. Services include:
- Cleaning
- Composite Repairs
- Weather Station Replacement/Repair
Wind Turbine Composite Lab Testing Services
MISTRAS helps you solve problems before they start with our Destructive Testing (DT), mechanical testing, and metallography lab testing services.
Our lab testing solutions support wind turbines throughout development, process certification, production, and potential damage analysis stages. Our Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) & Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) testing centers help you find the best possible materials for nacelles, blades, towers and gearboxes and ensure their material properties before manufacturing.
In our state-of-the-art testing labs, we use multiple methods to test for and confirm material strength and durability, including but not limited to:
