The future for wind power involves large turbines placed offshore, where the environment is extremely difficult.
Since access to the offshore constructions is costly and difficult, there is a need for a system, which would
provide an operator with real-time information about the structural condition of wind turbine. Such real-time
information could let the operator detect the existance of damage, locate and quantify damage and estimate
remaining service life. The idea of Structural Health Monitoring of wind turbine blade is to monitor a rotor blade
as the part of WT which is influenced by external conditions the most.
Such a system has been implemented in bridges as well as in aircraft industry, where in an ongoing project,
the damage is detected utilizing vibration signatures.
The goal:
remote identification of the damage by means of extensive use of sensors.
SHM will provide blade monitoring during operation time, what will reduce the cost of ownership by:
- reducing unnecessary routine maintenance
- increasing availability and extending life by warning when preventative maintenance is required
- reducing insurance against downtime and failure
It will provide the designers with feedback of structural performance, assisting in development of structures with higher utility and lower manufacturing costs. Thus, it is essential to find the appropriate positions for placing the sensors to ensure obtaining a warning signal in advance to damage development.
SHM is the new activity in FEM group. The research is carried on in cooperation with Materials Research Division. Designing of the SHM system for rotor blade requires a lot of input from several mechanical tests involving materials, sub-components and full-scale tests. The input from researches within the field of sub-components and full-scale tests concerns mostly understanding of the complex structural behaviour of wind turbine blades.
The cooperation with Materials Research Division concerns also European project called
Sensor
Smbedded
Emart
System.