Experimental Facilities

WMC moved from Delft University to its new facilities in Wieringerwerf in 2003. The new location is next to open water giving the possibility for larger structures to be delivered by ship. The wind turbine test site of ECN is only at a few kilometres distance.

The test facilities of WMC include standard test rigs for material and component testing and a large testing area with a strong floor for testing larger structures. The facility is equipped with a large hydraulic system including actuators from 100 to 3000 kN to apply static or fatigue loads to the components. Standard frame elements can be used to build appropriate test rigs. The strong floor is capable of taking concentrated loads up to 500 tons and is equipped with 2200 anchor points for fixation of test rigs and structures. Most of the software for the measurement and control systems is developed in house, giving flexibility in carrying out also very complex testing on all kind of structures and components.

Rotor blades can be tested both statically and in fatigue using multi-axial and multiple-point loading. To be able to reduce the fatigue testing time and still have full displacement and force control, taking into account the secondary effects during a multi-axial fatigue test, the near resonance test is developed. Depending on the customers' needs also full resonance or quasi-static fatigue tests are carried out. WMC has developed the procedures for blade tests since 1984 and has tested many blades for many of the largest blade manufacturers.