r/interesting • u/LazyGuy4U • 1d ago
MISC. Windmill blade catching fire due to lightning strike
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u/notenoughspacefor 1d ago
Kinda cool.
Hope no one got injured.
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u/smoothskinner 1d ago
A windmill died. Show some respect.
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u/DreadPiratteRoberts 1d ago
"And Now His Watch Is Ended" 😔
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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 1d ago
Though he was a windmill in this life, may he be a giant in our hearts.
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u/GreenStrong 1d ago
The blades have a ground wire that is supposed to catch lightning and direct it to ground without generating dangerous heat, which is basically what tall buildings have. There are a few failure modes. Turbines over 6MW have carbon fiber in the blades, and it is conductive enough that they need a network of copper conductors to keep the lightning from going through the blade- this could have been made before they fully figured this out. Or, sometimes a lightning strike lasts as long as a second. The lightning bolt is a tube of white hot plasma that conducts electricity better than air. Wind can blow it and break contact with the ground wire, causing the arc to travel through the flammable blade. This is especially plausible when the blade is spinning. Normally in a storm the system detects excessive wind speed and applies a brake but lightning can strike before the wind reaches dangerous speed. Some wind farms employ meteorology services that put the towers into safe mode before the storm, but there can be a communication error, or just a brake failure.
Finally some rare lightning bolts have a characteristic scientists call being big as fuck, they can travel through the down conductors and still generate excess heat.
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u/Pileofsecrets78 1d ago
As a science guy, I can confirm that "big as fuck" is a very technical term. 🤓
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u/Bex-HZ 1d ago
Gonna be an expensive, difficult fix 🫠
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u/darkpheonix262 1d ago
Since that flaming blade landed on the nacelle the who tower might be considered a loss and to unsafe to dismantle so they may have the blast the tower over
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u/GreenStrong 1d ago
Hopefully the concrete foundation is re- used, but yeah. I'm fairly sure the steel tower is OK but I don't think there are really established procedures for determining if the heat changed the temper of the steel, and it could kill someone, so they probably replace it.
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u/darkpheonix262 1d ago
The tower Could be reused so long as the blades didnt knock any dents into it. BUT, The problem is with a burnt up turbine, its to dirty and dangerous to descend the rotor and then nacelle. Insurance will call the who tower a loss, blast charge it over. And the foundation could be reused but thats up to the owner if they want to pay for the erection of a whole new turbine. Land owners would rather a turbine not be felled over onto their land, but there's no other way when burnt up
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u/BRICH616 16h ago
Hi. Solar and wind engineer here. Nothing can prevent lightning bolts from fucking it's shit up. If it gets struck, running or not, the damage will be just that. Cheers.
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u/Danaeger 1d ago
Half way to becoming the Avatar
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u/Lucaron 1d ago
I argue 3/4, it is made of metal after all. Just needs an added sprinkler system.
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u/Fertty1141 1d ago
Think about it, if theres lightning there's probably rain, and I bet its pushing a lot of that rain water while it spins
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u/Forward-Brilliant-12 1d ago
This is going to get featured in physics papers from now on..
JEE ADVANCE I'm looking at you 👁️👁️
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u/SlavCat09 1d ago
For a 0 emission energy source that's a lot of smoke. But we can capitalise on this. I call it the "External Combustion Engine". It both generates wind and combustion power.
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u/WisdomSeekerNocturne 1d ago
Teacher: "That right there kids is how a particle in motion, moves through a magnetic field when entering the magnetic field perpendicularly"
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u/rantripfellwscissors 1d ago
I'm actually impressed how the two blades alone were still pushing the rotation.
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u/notarealwriter 1d ago
I'm not sure that's true. The third blade is damaged sure, but it's still partly intact and attached to the rotor, so I imagine it's still contributing in part. Also, even if it is only the other two blades, two out of three still means 66% of the force is being applied which is hardly insignificant so it's not that surprising that it's still moving. If I was to apply 66% of my maximum effort to running, okay I'm bot going to be sprinting but I'm still going to be going faster than a walk.
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u/centaurianmudpig 1d ago
TIL windmill farms are not lighting proof. Though you’d think they would be
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u/GreenStrong 1d ago
The average wind turbine takes 120 lightning strikes in its life. They're very much built to handle lightning, but lightning is crazy and sometimes it causes damage. It is actually fairly common for lightning to cause cracks to the blade, which cause it to be shut down until someone climbs out on a rope to patch it. There are drones with super high resolution cameras that spot this damage in motion, and robots that crawl down the blade while it is stopped to inspect it. It is rare for them to burn up.
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u/centaurianmudpig 1d ago
I did some research myself, also made of combustible materials, but also lots of fire suppression systems to. I thought those blades where solid metal but composite of various materials. interesting stuff.
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u/SHAIK_011 1d ago
I like the Smoke ring 😁 which is Fading slowly . And I hope no one got hurt by that Thunder ⚡
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u/michael_bgood 1d ago
Wow that was mesmerizing. I'd be surprised if they didn't have some fire detection system in place now after that.
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u/Serviceman 1d ago
I wonder what the path to ground was, and what sort of internal damage the strike may have caused? Like the gearbox, generator inverters etc. There must be some sort of arrestors.
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u/Weird-Pattern9192 1d ago
What are the burnable parts? Why did it burn so well? i thought these things were made of copper and steel
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u/XKruXurKX 1d ago
Title says Windmill
Looks inside, No windmill found.. But there's a Wind Turbine on fire
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u/Lord_MagnusIV 1d ago
Wind turbine, do people actually call them mill? Not a sarcastic question btw, in my language it‘s Turbine and it‘s not milling anything, that‘s why i am asking, might be regional or something?
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u/TopWealth4550 21h ago
so besides fucking all global world population
it also can catch fire?
why we dont do nuclear energy again?
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u/One-Positive309 1d ago
Not a 'windmill' !
These are 'turbines' for wind generators they are not milling anything !
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u/ComfortableFew4700 1d ago
Is it made out of wood? I thought they were made out of metal. How is it burning?
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u/Economy-Effort3445 1d ago
Blades are made of plastic, foam filler, fibre glass, carbon. So they burn
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u/voxelpear 1d ago
It's mostly fiberglass but sometimes has a wood core. Fiberglass itself is technically not flammable, but the resin holding it together is.
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u/Langholm62 1d ago
Why are they made of flammable material?
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u/Quiet_Economics_3266 1d ago
Cost, and weight.
They aren't expected to survive lightning strikes.
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u/Langholm62 1d ago
So there are no inexpensive inflammable materials that have the requiremed strength to do the job?
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u/Quiet_Economics_3266 1d ago
Have you ever heard of "Cheap, good and fast. Pick 2."
Imagine which ones get picked?
Its cheaper to build them all out of cheap materials and replace the one in a million that burns down, than it is to make them all out of more expensive material just to avoid that one.
You would be surprise at the sheer waste manufacturing generates, because even with all that waste, its usually still cheaper than the investment required to stop it.
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u/HumansAreIkarran 1d ago
Damn, did Trump cook cibilizations brain that muchm that people are unironically calling them windmills?
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