Structural health monitoring of wind turbines
Table of contents
Project data
| Titel | Title Methoden zur Zustandsanalyse von Windenergieanlagen, eingebunden in das Verbundvorhaben WinConFat: Materialermüdung von On- und Offshore Windenergieanlagen aus Stahlbeton und Spannbeton unter hochzyklischer Beanspruchung | Methods for structural health monitoring of wind turbines, integrated in the joint research project WinConFat: Material fatigue of onshore and offshore wind turbines made of reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete under high cyclic loads Förderer | Funding Deutscher Beton- und Bautechnik-Verein (DBV) / WinConFat Zeitraum | Period 09/2018 – 12/2020 |
Report from year book 2020
Damage State analysis of wind turbines
Ultrasounic investigation of a large concrete beam
In many areas of engineering, the long-term monitoring of structures is an established tool for service life assessment and risk minimization. The monitoring of strains and deformations is applied in civil engineering is increasing. However, the mentioned measurements are only partially suitable for lifetime monitoring due to the lack of longevity of the sensors as well as the partially still insufficient description of degradation processes. On the other hand, ultrasonic measurement methods already offer enormous performance potential in several scientific disciplines (e.g. medicine, physics).
In concrete construction, the application is underdeveloped, but especially in laboratory tests, the method shows that it is ideally suited for condition assessment and damage monitoring of concrete structures. Furthermore, the method has an extremely high potential for long-term stable monitoring. However, the interpretation of the results from an ultrasonic measurement is not trivial, since concrete exhibits complex multiple scattering of ultrasonic waves.
The project is part of the joint research project WinConFat "Material fatigue of onshore and offshore wind turbines made of reinforced and prestressed concrete under high cyclic loading". As a focus of the research project in 2020, ultrasonic measurements of large-format concrete beams under fatigue loading were conducted as well as static and cyclic material tests and creep tests. The relationship between the change in material properties and the change in the propagation behaviour of ultrasonic waves in concrete was experimentally determined.
The purpose of the investigations of the research project DBV 311 is in a broader sense the research of structural indicators for the detection of the damage process for the development and implementation of the ultrasonic methods to a long-term stable monitoring tool for the assessment of the service life of structures made of reinforced and prestressed concrete.