• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.10 no.4_5
• /
• pp.353-373
• /
• 2012

The instrumented Canton Tower is a 610 m high-rise structure, which has been considered as a benchmark problem for structural health monitoring (SHM) research. In this paper, an improved automatic modal identification method is presented based on a natural excitation technique in conjunction with the eigensystem realization algorithm (NExT/ERA). In the proposed modal identification method, damping ratio, consistent mode indicator from observability matrices (CMI_O) and modal amplitude coherence (MAC) are used as criteria to distinguish the physically true modes from spurious modes. Enhanced frequency domain decomposition (EFDD), the data-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-DATA) and the proposed method are respectively applied to extract the modal parameters of the Canton Tower under different environmental conditions. Results of modal parameter identification based on output-only measurements are presented and discussed. User-selected parameters used in those methods are suggested and discussed. Furthermore, the effect of environmental conditions on the dynamic characteristics of Canton tower is investigated.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.677-691
• /
• 2015

In this study, the geometrical setup of a turbine blade is tracked. A research-scale rotating turbine blade system is setup with a single 3-axes accelerometer mounted on one of the blades. The turbine system is rotated by a controlled motor. The tilt and rolling angles of the rotating blade under operating conditions are determined from the response measurement of the single accelerometer. Data acquisition is achieved using a prototype wireless sensing system. First, the Rodrigues' rotation formula and an optimization algorithm are used to track the blade rolling angle and pitching angles of the turbine blade system. In addition, the blade flapwise natural frequency is identified by removing the rotation-related response induced by gravity and centrifuge force. To verify the result of calculations, a covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification method (SSI-COV) is applied to the vibration measurements of the blades to determine the system natural frequencies. It is thus proven that by using a single sensor and through a series of coordinate transformations and the Rodrigues' rotation formula, the geometrical setup of the blade can be tracked and the blade flapwise vibration frequency can be determined successfully.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.693-707
• /
• 2015

The efficiency of wind turbines (WT) is primarily reflected in their ability to generate electricity at any time. Downtimes of WTs due to "conventional" inspections are cost-intensive and undesirable for investors. For this reason, there is a need for structural health monitoring (SHM) systems, to enable service and maintenance on demand and to increase the inspection intervals. In general, monitoring increases the cost effectiveness of WTs. This publication concentrates on the application of two vibration-based SHM algorithms for stability and structural change monitoring of offshore WTs. Only data driven, output-only algorithms based on stochastic subspace identification (SSI) in time domain are considered. The centerpiece of this paper deals with the rough mathematical description of the dynamic behavior of offshore WTs and with the basic presentation of stochastic subspace-based algorithms and their application to these structures. Due to the early stage of the industrial application of SHM on offshore WT on the one side and the required confidentiality to the plant manufacturer and operator on the other side, up to now it is not possible to analyze different isolated structural damages resp. changes in a systematic manner, directly by means of in-situ measurement and to make these "acknowledgements" publicly available. For this reason, the sensitivity of the methods for monitoring purposes are demonstrated through their application on long time measurements from a 1:10 large scale test rig of an offshore WT under different conditions: undamaged, different levels of loosened bolt connections between tower parts, different levels of fouling, scouring and structure inclination. The limitation and further requirements for the approaches and their applicability on real foundations are discussed along the paper.