From 3 to 5 June, WILLOW partners showcased several research developments at TORQUE 2026, one of the leading international conferences on wind energy, held in Bruges, Belgium. The event brought together researchers and industry experts to discuss the latest advances in offshore wind technologies, with several contributions stemming from the WILLOW project.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), through its OWI-Lab research group, presented two studies developed within the framework of WILLOW. On 3 June, Ahmed Mujtaba presented “From Design to As-Built: Quantifying the Impact of As-Built Geometry on Fatigue Life of Offshore Wind Turbine Monopiles”, providing new insights into how construction deviations can influence the long-term fatigue performance of offshore wind structures.
On 4 June, Yacine Belhadj presented “Self-Supervised Vibration-Based Structural Health Monitoring of Offshore Wind Farms: Field Deployment and Abnormal Event Detection”, showcasing a novel approach to monitoring offshore wind assets and detecting abnormal events through vibration data.
WILLOW partner 24SEA also contributed to the conference. Panagiotis Konis and Nymfa Noppe presented “Fleet-wide Fatigue Assessment of Offshore Wind Turbines Using Artificial and Bayesian Neural Networks”, exploring how advanced data-driven methods can support more accurate lifetime predictions and asset management strategies across entire wind turbine fleets. Their work was presented within Theme 5: Reliability, Monitoring, Sensing & Operations and Maintenance (O&M), chaired by Christof Devriendt (VUB). The theme addressed how monitoring, sensing and data-driven technologies can improve wind turbine operation, detect issues at an early stage, extend asset lifetime and reduce O&M costs.
The participation of VUB and 24SEA at TORQUE 2026 highlights WILLOW’s ongoing commitment to advancing research and innovation in structural health monitoring, reliability assessment and lifetime management for offshore wind assets.
Further information on the research presented at TORQUE 2026 is available through the following publications:
- From design to as-built: Quantifying the impact of as-built geometry on fatigue life of offshore wind turbine monopiles – Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Self-Supervised Vibration-Based Structural Health Monitoring of Offshore Wind Farms: Field Deployment and Abnormal Event Detection – Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Fleet-wide Fatigue Assessment of Offshore Wind Turbines Using Artificial and Bayesian Neural Networks – IOPscience
