Damage Monitoring for Wind Turbine Blade using Impedance Technique

Impedance based monitoring technique was investigated to evaluate the damage occurring in wind turbine blade. In this study, PVDF film piezo sensors were patched on the 10 kW wind turbine blade, and impedance was measured over the frequency range of 1 similar to 200 MHz under fatigue loading. With applying fatigue loads on the blade, change in maximum deflection of the blade and local strain values could be obtained from the strain gages attached on the blade, and difference of the impedance signatures was also observed. From these data, it could be found that local damage or geometrical change in the blade structure happened. To quantitatively compare the impedance signature patterns, a statistical algorithm, scalar damage metric M was used. It was calculated from the impedance signatures considering fatigue loads and location of the sensors. The metric values were compared to correlate the metrics with damage in the blade.