There was very strong winds and the two brakes on the mill broke..and then the windmill reached speeds at 1000 km/h and then it exploded..

No one was hurt...

Parts of it was found over 700 meters away..

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/politi ... /id-10553264.html?forside

Coolest thing I've seen for months. Quality.

However, the downside is this is going to put people off windfarms even more...

Downside? Not having widmills is positively great for the environment!

Holy christ, that thing wasn't half moving.

I'd like to know what caused that to happen. I know that these windmills have integrated braking systems to keep that from happening. Some sort of malfunction?

@ Tristancliff: I, for one, enjoy your steady stream of sarcasm

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

I'd like to know what caused that to happen. I know that these windmills have integrated braking systems to keep that from happening. Some sort of malfunction?

@ Tristancliff: I, for one, enjoy your steady stream of sarcasm

I would find it brilliant if an engineer had taken one of the brakes off or unwound it so it broke at a later time, just to see what would happen. If I worked on and repaired those things, i'd be tempted.

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

I'd like to know what caused that to happen. I know that these windmills have integrated braking systems to keep that from happening. Some sort of malfunction?

That's what I was thinking. A few years ago I went for a tour of a wind farm, near my old home town, and they explained that they have special safety measures to stop things like this happening. Someone must have messed up somewhere.

BTW - a tour of a wind farm is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds (you can walk about inside them!).

Wonder how much extra power was generated when it went nuts.

Both brakes failed, maybe because of very poor maintenance. Its not very common to have both brakes to fail at once, so maybe one of the brakes hadn`t worked since last service..

There was two service men in the windmill, trying to slow it down, but they couldn`t because of loosing the brakes. They heard strange noices and the mill went crazy. They left the mill and ran for their life...

There was gail force winds in DK at the time, that explains the speed...

The windmill company Vestas, will not give answers to the public right now..

I did a job for Vestas a couple of years ago. They are pretty quiet about their stuff.

I asked questions about allsorts of stuff they had lying around in their warehouse and no one answered a single question. I guess the fact most of them in their didn't speak a word of english didn't help but the english folk there wouldn't pipe up either.

Anyway, it's surprising how flimsy the structures of them windmills are. It bent and collapsed pretty quickly. I always thought they were made of something stronger than what looks like fibreglass.

Quote from beefyman666 :

...it's surprising how flimsy the structures of them windmills are. It bent and collapsed pretty quickly. I always thought they were made of something stronger than what looks like fibreglass.

Well, technically it doesn't have to be particularly strong, considering there is generally almost no force on any parts other than the rotors. But considering the force with which those blades came apart, I wouldn't necessarily call that structure flimsy. Also, if you look closely at the video, you'll notice that the reason it collapsed was because one of the blades struck the tower as it came apart. I don't care what it's made of, that's a massive impact. It's basically like standing on an aluminum can. It is more than strong enough to support your weight, but tap it on the side and it collapses. That's what happened here, except that the tap on the side was more like a hit with a baseball bat.

Never thought of it that way, Silly me.

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

Well, technically it doesn't have to be particularly strong, considering there is generally almost no force on any parts other than the rotors. But considering the force with which those blades came apart, I wouldn't necessarily call that structure flimsy. Also, if you look closely at the video, you'll notice that the reason it collapsed was because one of the blades struck the tower as it came apart. I don't care what it's made of, that's a massive impact. It's basically like standing on an aluminum can. It is more than strong enough to support your weight, but tap it on the side and it collapses. That's what happened here, except that the tap on the side was more like a hit with a baseball bat.

I guess it's like an F1 cars suspension. Designed to be insanely strong in a specific direction, but put a force on it in the wrong way, and it will snap off in an instant.

Quote from DarkTimes :

I guess it's like an F1 cars suspension. Designed to be insanely strong in a specific direction, but put a force on it in the wrong way, and it will snap off in an instant.

Yeah. Even so, I think it's probably fairly strong - just not designed for that kind of impact - understandably.

Holy shit!
Good thing they made that safety area around when they noticed it.

Quote from The Very End :

Holy shit!
Good thing they made that safety area around when they noticed it.

The safety zone was 400 meters, but the wings was thrown 700 meters away.. so they are talking about a new safety zone that will be min. 800 meters..

Picture of the mill. Its a NORDTANK mill but Vestas had the service on it.. The mill was 10 years old

800M :O
Man, thats...far oO

R.I.P mill, we`ll miss you

Don't miss it. They'll probably build another one and cause yet more environmental damage with their stupid ideas about green energy. Local residents (well, the informed ones) should protest wildly against a replacement.

That thing must've been broken to begin with, otherwise something like that would never happen. Don't they usually change the blade angles to limit the speed, or at least rotate the whole head to be sideways to the wind?

Quote from tristancliffe :

Don't miss it. They'll probably build another one and cause yet more environmental damage with their stupid ideas about green energy. Local residents (well, the informed ones) should protest wildly against a replacement.

Are you serious?!

Absolutely. They are terrible for the environment. The consume more energy to erect, maintain and remove than they recover in their entire working lives. So in other words we have to burn more fossil fuels to use them.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Absolutely. They are terrible for the environment. The consume more energy to erect, maintain and remove than they recover in their entire working lives. So in other words we have to burn more fossil fuels to use them.

Could you back this up with proof? I have a hard time believing that a single wind turbine, providing power to 5,000 homes, would not be more efficient over its 15-30 year lifespan than a coal plant...

I remember one being erected in my last year at high school. It was at the time supposed to be one of the biggest in the UK.

It took a few days for it all to go up, consisted of several tube sections being hauled on low loaders, some pretty big crane shifting it all.

What I didn't understand was there was already 10 smaller windmills a few hundreds yards away from where this big one got constructed. These are the ones at Winterton/Somerton if anyone was wondering.

A few years ago they also put another fairly big one right next to the coast at Lowestoft. It was a massive eyesore as you got closer into the town (not that Lowestoft is much to look at).

Last but not least, theres a big windfarm about half a mile out at sea at Great Yarmouth, about 20 or so sit there. Scroby Sands I think it's called. They're maintained by Vestas.

Im not sure which would take more energy putting up, the ones in land or the ones out at sea?

Quote from beefyman666 :

Im not sure which would take more energy putting up, the ones in land or the ones out at sea?

The ones at sea most likely. Those have to have support structures built underwater to support them and special cabling run to shore. Additionally, I'm sure it costs more for the actual material seeing as it has to be stronger, and less prone to corrosion.

Of course, you also get a much more efficient and consistent wind source... and less eye strain!

http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/secoas/secoas/scroby_windmills.jpg - Although this isn't a very big picture of Scroby Sands, I'd still call it an eyesore.

http://www.tournorfolk.co.uk/w ... /westsomertonwindfarm.jpg - And this is the Somerton wind farm.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/c ... _cannell_wind_400x300.jpg - This is the one at Lowestoft. Tell me that's not an eyesore.