Integration of complementary methods for monitoring stress/strain of wind turbine blades structures

Abstract

The most important part of wind turbine is the blade that must be tested during the fabrication and during the functioning when can be damaged by moisture absorption, fatigue, wind gusts or lightning strikes. The novelty of the paper is represented by the employing of wireless sensors embedded in a scalable wind turbine blade made from Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics together with Fiber Bragg Gratings in order to effectuate structural health monitoring in static conditions. The sensors are placed on critical location on blade determined by FEM simulation and a comparison between the complementary methods is done.