Ever Wondered How Wind Turbines Stay in Place?

Image Credit Bilfinger Berger Group

A sea based marine farm of wind turbines can be a magnificent or most depressing sight, depending on your point of view.  Yet have you ever wondered how the wind turbines manage to stand so rigidly straight all the time.  After all, when have you ever heard of one toppling over?

Image Credit Bilfinger Berger Group

The answer is in the foundations.  They are huge.  The first pictures here show specialists from the engineering firm of Bilfinger Berger hard at work in the middle of the Baltic Sea.  There a wind farm of 90 turbines is being assembled and in order to ensure they stay upright their foundations must be extremely heavy.  The size is just incredible.

Image Credit Flickr User Luc Van Braekel

The next two pictures show the rig Rambiz in the process of lowering the foundations of wind turbines at sea near Oostende.

Image Credit Flickr User Luc Van Braekel

Here you get an even better idea about just how large these foundations must be to do their job.

Image Credit Wikimedia

If you need to put the sheer size of these monstrous foundations in to context, take a look at what they have to support.  Here, parts of a wind turbine are transported through the English town of Edenfield.  Yes, they are the rotor blades you can see.