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Description
Wind turbine blade testing is a critical factor in maintaining high levels of reliability and evaluating the latest technological developments in airfoils and materials. Adequate testing will allow wind energy to be more competitive. In addition, blade testing is required as part of turbine certification to meet international design standards including IEC, GL, DNV. Meeting international standards allows developers to mitigate the technical and financial risk of deploying mass-produced wind turbines.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center's (MassCEC) Wind Technology Testing Center (WTTC) offers a full suite of certification tests for turbine blades up to 90 meters in length. WTTC also offers the latest wind turbine blade testing and prototype development methodologies to help the wind industry deploy the next generation of land-based and offshore wind turbine technologies.
The WTTC's principle technical team includes blade engineers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) trained in blade testing at the current test facility in Colorado. Expertise and personnel from NREL are playing key roles in commissioning and overseeing the operation of the WTTC. NREL has tested numerous blades ranging in size from 9 to 47 meters over the last 15 years. In addition, WTTC/NREL engineers have previous experience testing blades at leading wind turbine design and manufacturing companies.
The WTTC is expected to begin commissioning soon and we are conducting a search for an Engineer-Blade Testing.
Responsibilities:
- Lead the design, planning, execution and reporting of full scale structural tests of wind turbine blades to customer and certifying body requirements
- Oversee all aspects of the project including communicating with the customer regarding their needs and instrumentation and data acquisition, servo-hydraulic controller, data analysis and reporting
- Ensure safety in all operations at all times
- Ensure scientific quality of experimental results is maintained and laboratory certification standards are met
- Perform mechanical design and engineering analysis on structural test components to ensure accurate fit and adequate safety factors
Qualifications:
- B.S. in Mechanical or Civil Engineering and minimum 5 years experience
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- Experience with steel design, large structural design or structural testing
- Expert user of Microsoft Excel for engineering analysis and calculations
- Comfortable working in a laboratory at elevated heights and in confined spaces
Preferred Qualifications:
- Masters of Science in Mechanical or Civil Engineering and 3 years experience, or Ph.D. in relevant field
- Experience with experimental mechanics of composite materials including static and fatigue loading of coupons or structures
- Expert user of finite element analysis for steel components or structures
- Expert user of AutoCAD, SolidWorks, or equivalent engineering CAD software
- Experience with data acquisition systems
- Experience with servo-hydraulic systems
- Programming languages for engineering analysis including Labview, Matlab, etc.