Mortlake South Wind Farm is located 5 kilometres south of Mortlake in the Moyne Shire of south western Victoria. The 126MW wind farm comprises 35 turbines installed on cleared agricultural land used for dairy farming.  Robert Bird Group were engaged by Acciona to assess the risk of rupture to the existing gas pipeline due to turbine blade failure of proposed wind turbines. The risk of rupture was assessed due to direct blade strike and ground vibration due to falling blade or debris.

The analysis was undertaken following concerns raised by the owner of the gas pipeline adjacent the Mortlake South wind farm. The Mortlake gas pipeline conveys natural gas at 15,000 kPa which is the highest operating pressure of any gas transmission pipeline operating in Australia. The assessment undertaken by RBG involved undertaking a finite element analysis to validate the gas pipeline capacity for blade fragment impact and a blade and debris throw analysis to determine impact and distance.

This analysis was supplemented with a ground vibration assessment undertaken by a geotechnical engineer.