Soil Instruments' sister company, ITM Ltd, were recently awarded a subcontract for the installation of instrumentation below one of the wind turbines at the Carnsore Wind Farm, in Ireland.

ESBI (Irish Electricity Supply Company) commissioned ITM to install six Soil Instruments Pressure Cells, just below the concrete pad foundations on one its towers, primarily to monitor pressure during the construction of the foundations, tower and turbine. The secondary function is the long-term monitoring of pressure once the turbine has been commissioned, to monitor the load being transferred from the turbine to the supporting ground. From this information the client can verify his foundation design, making changes if necessary, with the potential to save costs, materials and construction time.

The pressure cells were wired back to a bank of vibrating wire mini-loggers inside an instrument room and data synchronised with the turbine logger, which records wind speed and direction to enable the changing pressures on the foundations to be tracked to wind load and direction.