wind turbine industry innovations

Wind turbines. They are big, imposing and from a distance they look indestructible, with rotor blade diameters of up to 130 meters. Yet every day these complex pieces of engineering, which have thousands of components working to turn a puff of wind into the electricity that powers our houses, are exposed to astonishing stresses and strains. 
 
Aalberts fluid control has come up with an ingenious optical sensor that measures the forces generated from the rotor blades, through the shaft and into the gearbox. The result? Wind turbine operators can better monitor the health of these giants, helping to keep them in good shape, longer.
 
Using lateral thinking and ingenuity, Aalberts adapted the optical sensor from tried-and-tested technology that Aalberts has installed on hundreds of ships, where it measures propeller shaft loads. For its journey into the world of wind turbines, the sensor will next be evaluated on a prototype wind turbine from one of the major manufacturers at the ECN research facility in the Netherlands.