Structural Health Monitoring for Wind Turbines – Condition Monitoring of Foundation, Tower and Rotor Blades

for damage detection at an early stage, life cycle prognosis and the optimization of wind farm operations

Regardless of location, a sustainable reduction of operating costs with a simultaneous increase in yields is gaining more and more relevance. Therefore, it is more important than ever to detect structural damage and icing at an early stage in order to avoid severe damage. Structural health monitoring (SHM) of the foundation, tower and rotor blade and conventional condition monitoring (CMS) on the drive train are becoming increasingly important in this context.

"The advancing state of the art offers new opportunities to sustainably increase yields", says Dr Carsten Ebert, Head of Wind Energy at Wölfel. "Our intelligent algorithms are based on the latest technological approaches and form the basis for data analysis and direct real-time optimization."

Wölfel is the European market leader in the field of structural monitoring of offshore wind farms and has, over decades built up a unique core competence in signal analysis. We offer comprehensive and individual support ranging from expert advice, delivery and installation of turnkey monitoring systems all the way through to data evaluation.

We record the real stresses affecting the system with our sensor systems and then extract the truly relevant technical statements from the flood of data. The integrated early warning systems can even reduce the number of inspections required by the authorities within the framework of recurring inspections (e.g. underwater inspections with diving robots).

Based on the detailed system condition analysis, you can plan ahead, optimize the operation of your wind turbines and extend their lifetime – the operation of your wind farm becomes more efficient and economical.

• Development and design of turnkey monitoring systems, including coordination with authorities and certification companies
• Provision of your plants with specially developed, robust measuring equipment with direct interface to the WT control system and SCADA system
• Data acquisition and data analysis by intelligent algorithms and experienced specialist engineers
• Reporting of monitoring results with individual level of detail – for submission to authorities, for design validation and as a basis for lifetime optimization
• Development of concepts for periodic inspections in which the necessary scope of testing is optimized by integrating monitoring results