Curtiss-Wright and dolphitech have partnered to provide predictive turbine maintenance and blade inspection services to the domestic and international wind market.
The collaboration pairs Curtiss-Wright’s StressWave and PdP Pattern Recognition software platforms with dolphitech’s next-generation dolphicam2 ultrasonic inspection technology to provide users with a comprehensive view of their wind turbine blade health.
“This partnership provides the wind industry with a cutting-edge inspection solution unlike any other,” says Kurt Mitchell, vice president of Curtiss-Wright. “Our collaboration with dolphitech will allow us to offer a robust portfolio of technologies that improve turbine reliability and reduce downtime.”
Based in Gjøvik, Norway, dolphitech developed the dolphicam2 to perform multi-material non-destructive Testing (NDT) using real-time, high-quality ultrasonic images. The dolphicam2 unit is small, lightweight and easy to use, making it well-suited for a wide range of applications and environments, including integration with robotics and crawlers for remote deployment, notes the company.
Combining Curtiss-Wright’s StressWave and PdP software platforms with dolphitech’s dolphicam2 technology creates a holistic, end-to-end solution for damage detection, prevention and prediction. StressWave “listens” for anomalies in their earliest stages. When a potential issue is detected, the dolphicam2 is dispatched to investigate the problem. PdP collects inspection data over time and uses the information to identify patterns that predict future damage. The more data that is collected, the more refined this process becomes, reducing maintenance and inspection costs over time and improving the longevity of assets.
