External Surface Damage Monitor
Ping Monitor surface damage detection
Ping Monitor continuously measures and analyses changes in the sound generated by blade damage.
Sound from wind turbine blades is received by the microphone and processed through different algorithms to identify noise from damage. Then the data is sent to the Ping Cloud for analysis and blade conditions report.
In cases where a repair is not prioritised, the Ping Monitor will continue to track damage and its progression over time.
Hear the difference
Signal with no blade damage:
Signal with blade damage:
A plug and play device easy to install and simple to operate.
The Ping Monitor is self-contained, uses solar power and cellular communication, it doesn’t require connection to either power or data, is completely independent from the turbine and no maintenance is needed.
Only one Ping Monitor is necessary per wind turbine tower, rather than instrumenting each blade with multiple sensors.
It attaches magnetically to the base of the tower in less than one minute, with zero installation and replacement costs and once installed, it immediately starts measuring the sound generated by the blades as they rotate.
Types of damage detected
Ping compares the sound that is detected from the blades to known acoustic signatures from damaged blades to identify the likely magnitude and type of damage.
Tip damage
The blade tip and the inflow edge are particularly exposed to erosion, which is detrimental to aerodynamics and significantly diminishes energy yields.
Leading edge erosion
Leading edge erosion is an emerging issue in wind turbine blade reliability, causing performance decreases and additional maintenance costs.
Gouge or lightning strike
Lightning strikes wreak havoc on wind turbine blades, and sometimes these lightning blasts cause severe damage to the blade.
Split tip
A split tip will weaken the structural integrity of your blades, negatively affect the blade aerodynamics and reduce overall turbine performance.
What is Ping Cloud?
Ping Cloud is a browser-based tool providing access the observations, and associated tools, produced as part of the Ping Monitor services.
The Damage Indicator screen provides an overview of the metrics from the Ping Monitor over time, showing trends in the data sets which identify specific turbines that need further investigation.
(click image to view larger version)
Y: List of turbines
X: Time line
Damage Indicator: Damage indicator scale
The Turbine screen enables operators to drill into turbine specific information with a graphical view of changes to damage indicators over time, a history of alarms and operator entered comments about turbine conditions.
(click image to view larger version)
Y: Damage scale 1 – 5
X: Time line
Green line: Wind turbine damage indicator
Map below: Site map
Ping Cloud allows for the configuration of alert triggers to passively monitor the damage indicators from turbines via email notifications.