Month: April 2012
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Patrick Henderson foundation
Patrick Henderson foundation is a technology widely used in the States, with thousands of installed foundations, but far less common in Europe. It’s a patented solution that consists of a large diameter, cast-in-place annular pier, with an average diameter of 4.5 m and a depth of about 9m, depending on the soil conditions and the…
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Transversal drainage
A quick photographic overview of the different types of transverse drainage systems currently used in the wind farms. In the following pictures, standard precast concrete pipes, cast in-situ concrete pipes and hard plastic. Basically the choice is more an economical than a technical problem, considering that they are equally effective. The real problem, as I…
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Cable trenches – the nervous system of the wind farm
Cable trenches construction probably doesn’t looks like the most exciting things in life, but including for them there are things that is better to know to avoid mistakes. They are used to connect the WTGs together with medium voltage cables, and they bring the earth and the optical fibres cables as well. The standard construction…
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Wellpoint drainage
Wellpoint system is a solution that we used successfully in a wind farm with serious drainage problems. The soil was made of silty sands, with a very high water table level due to a river nearby. The system consists of several interconnected wells spaced along a trench. All of them are connected to a common…
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Augercast deep foundation piles
The following pictures are from a wind farm where due to the weak conditions of the subsoil a deep foundation with piles has been necessary, using a technique known as continuous flight augering (CFA). As you can see, with the same machine we drilled and pumped the concrete in the hole. A dry hole has…
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Industrial Archeology
These are several pictures that I took in 2010 during a trip to Tarifa, southern Spain. It is one of the best spot for wind surf, kite surf and of course for wind energy production. The WTGs are about 20 years old, but they look like remnants of a faraway past, with their lattice tower…
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San Anton – a Wind Farm from cradle to completion
San Anton is a small wind farm (4 WTGs) located in Lillo, Toledo (Spain). I had the opportunity to follow this project from the beginning visiting the site very often. I collected several picture to show the main phases of a wind farm construction. First of all a met mast is installed, and wind data…
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Why this blog
Hello, My name is Francesco and I am a newbie in the word of blogging. Being an engineer working in a big sector in the wind sector, I decided to start this page to share with colleagues and other whoever may be interested what I learn projecting and building wind farm worldwide. I work in…