In-situ Wireless Monitoring of Offshore Wind Towers and Blades (INSIGHT)
The INSIGHT project is partly funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) over three years and will develop new techniques to in situ wireless monitoring of offshore wind towers and blades.
In a wind turbine, the composite blades can suffer fatigue failure and towers are susceptible to corrosion and fatigue. These components require regular inspection to avoid catastrophic failure risk. Current inspection methods can only be performed offline, through human intervention, with limited volume coverage and are cumbersome, time consuming, hazardous and expensive.
The INSIGHT project will develop novel technology to continuously monitor offshore wind tower structures and turbine blades, using embedded inductive displacement sensors (IDS) for the blades and the long range ultrasonic (LRU) and acoustic emission technique (AE) for the towers. Data will be transmitted and the system controlled by wireless links with the shore base. The INSIGHT system will provide 100% volume coverage and reduce the inspection costs.
Included in the project is a major dissemination programme to present the findings to industry via a network of events and seminars.
List of the partners
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TWI LIMITED
FUGRO STRUCTURAL MONITORING
NOVALIA
PHYSICAL ACOUSTICS LIMITED
RWE NPOWER
SOLENT COMPOSITES
SPREE ENGINEERING
TUV NEL LIMITED
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
ZETTLEX LIMITED.
I.D.E.A.S.
Ericsson
Project Manager
Dr Chiraz Ennaceur
TWI Ltd
Granta Park, Great Abington
Cambridge CB21 6AL, UK
Tel : +44 (0)1223 891162
Fax : +44 (0)1223 890952
chiraz.ennaceur@twi.co.uk