A brief specification for a complete blade monitoring system

摘要

A speaker at recent AWEA conference remarked that the wind industry was getting a handle on the gearbox problem and its next big challenge would be blades. The speaker is right. What the industry needs is a condition monitoring system capable of detecting and predicting failures and conditions related to the blades on megawatt-class wind turbines. Several technologies have been tried or adapted from other markets with limited ability to cost effectively detect all major failure modes. One system judged most appropriate is currently not commercially available to the market and will be described later. A blade condition-monitoring system will likely be a requirement as wind turbines and blades increase in size, insurance requirements dictate reliability, and offshore wind turbines increase in number.