Angewandte Physik
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Weather-dependent passive thermography and thermal simulation of in-service wind turbine blades
(2023)
. To cope with the increase in the manufacturing and operation of wind turbines, wind farm operators need inspection tools that are able to provide reliable information while keeping the downtime low. Current inspection techniques require to stop the wind turbine. This work presents the current progress in the project EvalTherm, in which passive thermography is evaluated as a possible non-destructive inspection tool for operational wind turbine blades (WTBs). A methodology to obtain thermal images of rotating WTBs has been established in this project. However, the quality of the results is heavily dependent on various aspects such as weather conditions, information on the inspected WTB, damage history, etc. In this work, a section of a used WTB is simulated using finite-element modelling (FEM) as well as experimentally tested for evaluating the accuracy of the model. Such a model will provide insight into the potential thermal response of a certain structure (with specific material properties) in given weather (boundary) conditions. The model is able to provide satisfactory predictions of the thermal response of the structure, as well as indicate what thermal contrast(s) result from artificial defects introduced in the structure.
Up to now, the inspection of wind turbines with industrial climbers has been considered ”state of the art”. However, ever-larger wind turbines and advancing digitization make modern and automated inspection methods indispensable. Passive thermography can serve as such a digital and atomized method while it is well known for its applications in the inspection of buildings or electrical circuits. However, its application relies on thermal gradients in the inspected object such that a temperature contrast exists between damaged and sound areas. This also holds for unheated structures like rotor blades of wind turbines which show no intrinsic temperature gradient and can hardly be heated. Under certain weather conditions with sufficient solar loading and diurnal temperature variations, passive thermography is suitable for the in-service inspection of rotor blades. However, for a reliable use of passive thermography on ”thermal passive” components, the incorporation of these environmental conditions in the planning and evaluation of thermal inspections is crucial. Additionally, the complex inner structure of wind turbine blades in comparison to other objects and buildings require a specific method referencing the individual rotor blades to each other. This allows the distinction between the thermal response of design-specific structural features and damages or irregularities between the three blades. We show thermal signatures of damage in rotor blades and contrast them with structural characteristics by comparing the three blades. In addition to measurements in industrial environments, laboratory measurements are shown and compared to simulations. The long-term goal is to simulate the influence of different weather parameters and thus gain a better understanding of measurements in the field. The results shown here can be seen as one step towards industrial application.