Applicability Analysis of Inspection and Monitoring Technologies in Wind Turbine Towers

Yanchao Yue,Dong Luo,Jingjing Tian,Kai Jia,Yongtao Bai,Tangbing Chen,Jian He,Chengwei Fei

doi:10.1155/2021/5548727

Yanchao Yue, Dong Luo + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5548727

Copy DOI

Abstract

Wind turbines are one of the key systems in wind energy development. The wind tower supporting the whole wind turbine is a towering structure, which has been affected by installation, transportation, environment, and other factors. Furthermore, it is prone to experience other quality problems that would be difficult to detect for wind turbine towers. Therefore, the key to maintain the wind tower structure and to ensure the normal operation of a wind turbine is to carry out comprehensive and detailed detection and monitoring studies during its service stage. This paper sorted out several common quality problems including structural damage, deformation, flange bolts loosening, and corrosion of wind tower and relevant research on the detection and monitoring of these quality problems. In addition, some nondestructive testing technologies are introduced, including the ultrasonic phased array, time of flight diffraction, magnetic memory, acoustic emission, fiber Bragg grating and piezoelectric impedance, and applications in wind turbine towers.

Highlights

With the exhaustion of traditional nonrenewable resources and the deterioration of the environment, the development of clean and renewable energy such as wind energy has been accelerated [1]
Wind turbine is the main structure for wind energy development, whose components include the wind tower which is the supporting part of the whole structure and works under the dynamic load directly [2, 3]. e wind tower plays a vital role in ensuring the normal operation of the wind turbine
The study allowed obtaining a large amount of structural health monitoring data of one wind turbine by analyzing the natural frequency, displacement mode shape (DMS), and curvature mode shape (CMS) of the tower and the blade, which can serve as the basis for damage detection

Summary

Introduction

With the exhaustion of traditional nonrenewable resources and the deterioration of the environment, the development of clean and renewable energy such as wind energy has been accelerated [1]. Erefore, this paper firstly summarizes some quality problems of wind towers including structural damage, deformation, flange bolt loosening, and corrosion, as well as the developed research of other authors on the corresponding detection and monitoring system. The study allowed obtaining a large amount of structural health monitoring data of one wind turbine by analyzing the natural frequency, displacement mode shape (DMS), and curvature mode shape (CMS) of the tower and the blade, which can serve as the basis for damage detection. By comparing the results of laboratory tests and finite element analysis, they studied the dynamic characteristics of a wind turbine tower with different damage locations. Results verified the practicability and reliability of this measurement system and provide an efficient and accurate method for the deformation monitoring of offshore wind turbine towers in the future. The remote location of offshore wind turbines seriously limits the application of in situ corrosion detection

Wind tower

Flaw Reflected wave

Stress concentration area

Acoustic emission source

Ultrasonic phased array detection

Piezoelectric effect