TY - JOUR A1 - Worzewski, Tamara A1 - Röllig, Mathias A1 - Maierhofer, Christiane A1 - Doroshtnasir, M. A1 - Steinfurth, H. A1 - Krankenhagen, Rainer T1 - Thermographic inspection of a wind turbine rotor blade segment utilizing natural conditions as excitation source, Part I: Solar excitation for detecting deep structures in GFRP N2 - This study evaluates whether subsurface features in rotor blades, mainly made of Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastics (GFRP), can generally be detected with ‘‘solar thermography”. First, the suitability of the sun is tested for acting as a heat source for applying active thermography on a 30 mm thick GFRP test specimen. Second, a defective rotor blade segment is inspected outdoors under ideal natural conditions using the sun as excitation source. Additionally, numerical FEM-simulations are performed and the comparability between experiment and simulation is evaluated for outdoor measurements. KW - NDT KW - Numerical simulation KW - Solar excitation KW - On-site inspection KW - Structural health monitoring PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infrared.2016.04.011 SN - 1350-4495 VL - 76 SP - 756 EP - 766 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-36076 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Worzewski, Tamara A1 - Krankenhagen, Rainer A1 - Doroshtnasir, M. T1 - Thermographic inspection of wind turbine rotor blade segment utilizing natural conditions as excitation source, Part II: The effect of climatic conditions on thermographic inspections – A long term outdoor experiment N2 - The present study continues the work described in part I of this paper in evaluating a longterm-experiment, where a rotor blade segment of a wind turbine is exposed to the elements and thereby monitored with passive thermography. First, it is investigated whether subsurface features in rotor blades – mainly made of GFRP – can generally be detected with thermography from greater distances under favorable conditions. The suitability of the sun for acting as a heat source in applying active thermography has been tested in the previous study. In this study, the climatic influence on thermographic measurement is evaluated. It is demonstrated that there are favorable and unfavorable circumstances for imaging thermal contrasts which reflect inner structures and other subsurface features like potential defects. It turns out that solar radiation serves as a very effective heat source, but not at all times of day. Other environmental influences such as diurnal temperature variations also create temperature contrasts that permit conclusions on subsurface features. Particular scenarios are reconstructed with FEM-simulations in order to gain deeper insight into the driving mechanisms that produce the observed thermal contrasts. These investigations may help planning useful outdoor operations for inspecting rotor blades with thermography. KW - NDT KW - Meteorological influence KW - Long-term experiment KW - FEM KW - On-site inspection PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infrared.2016.04.012 SN - 1350-4495 VL - 76 SP - 767 EP - 776 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-36078 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -