Easy does it - Siemens
A power-generating wind turbine 100 metres above the ground. Up here, you don’t want to be struggling to open a maintenance hatch.
When Siemens decided to make its turbine housings out of composite materials, rather than metal, they gave us a challenge: Could we find a safer and quicker way to fix the access panels in place?
It took a lot of collaboration, prototyping and extreme testing to meet some of the toughest performance criteria we’ve ever worked with. Eventually, we found a way to integrate bigHeads into composite panels and over-mould them with an insulation layer. This keeps them safe from lightning strikes, and matches the colour of the composite housing.
Key highlights:
A safer working environment – the re-design of the access hatch made access easier and safer.
Improved design – bigHead design helped enabled an improved nacelle design in composites.
Lightweight – bigHead enabled use of composites