Improving Blade Quality: Challenges and Opportunities with Mohammed Fajar

Rosemary had a great discussion with blade expert Mohammed Fajar about blade defects, the blade design and certification process, and how optimization and automation could improve blade quality. Mohammed provides perspective on recent issues with turbine OEMs like Siemens Gamesa, and expresses optimism about wind power's future, particularly offshore! With both of their extensive blade knowledge, they explore how human factors in blade manufacturing lead to inconsistencies and why the industry struggles to implement more automation. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Apex Wind - https://www.apexwind.dkPardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Rosemary: Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm Rosie Barnes and today I'm joined by Mohamed Fajar, founder and blade consultant at Apex Wind. We used to be colleagues actually at LM Wind Power when Mohamed was a senior structural design engineer who took five blade designs through the certification process. So wind turbine blade defects are very topical at the moment with what's in the news with Siemens Gamesa and also TPI, we've talked a lot about that on the podcast. And I thought that Mohammed would be the perfect person to have on to tell us about how the blade design and certification process works, or maybe more accurately how it should work to ensure that blade defects aren't a problem. They're not supposed to be. So thanks heaps for coming on, Mohammed. Mohammed: Thank you for inviting me. Rosemary: So I just wanted to start out. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what you're doing now at Apex? Mohammed: I graduated in 2014 as a master in engineering in France about composite structures and materials. And since then I joined LM Wind Power in Denmark and my journey with blades started. So I started as a structural design engineer. Yeah. As you say, designing blades, for various OEMs, uh, taking them from the conceptual design to the Yeah. Manufacturing and handover to, to the factories. Also worked at yeah, a company called R& D test systems also in Denmark doing test systems for wind. And then another three and a half years in Vestas in the innovation department. I was working a little bit as the blade owner in the department tech lead in, in all blade related projects. One of them, it's the, yeah,