Measurement of strain and bending deflection of a wind turbine tower using arrayed FBG sensors

This paper introduces a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) based arrayed sensor system for use in the measurement of strain and bending deflection of an 1.5 MW wind turbine tower, and describes the results of field tests of structural monitoring of turbine start and feathering load conditions. A wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) FBG interrogator was developed with a spectrometer-type demodulator based on a linear photo detector for high-speed strain sensing. Real-time shape estimation of the wind turbine tower was accomplished using strain data gathered by surface mounted fiber Bragg grating sensors. The finite element model of the wind turbine tower was created and the displacement-strain transformation (DST) matrix on the basis of the modal approach was obtained. To monitor the dynamic structural behavior of the wind turbine, 10 FBG sensors were arrayed and installed on the inner surface of the tower located at the primary wind direction. The time histories of the strain were gathered using the FBG sensors and the deflections of the tower top position were simultaneously transformed using the DST matrix. Finally, the full deflection shapes of the tower were successfully estimated using arrayed FBG sensors.