The National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec) has just completed
a facility designed to test wind turbine blades of up to 100
metres The centre, at Blyth in Northumberland, already has the
capability to test 50-metre turbine blades, but has designed the
new facility to test the longer blades used by offshore The
5,700 square-metre building is 123 metres long and features a
test hub comprising of a 15-metre high concrete superstructure
with two huge rings. The top ring, measuring eight metres in
diameter, is designed to hold the enormous blades. There are two
main types of test, which Narec refers to as "fatigue" and
"static". The static test aims to see how strong the blade is
when pulled by winches attached to a number of points along the
blade -- the idea is to mimic potential extreme gusts of wind
which could flex the blades. Narec then measures the impact on
the structure. The fatigue tests are more complex, using
oscillating hydraulic masses to move the blade at its natural
frequency and mimic the general