Energy harvesting to power sensing hardware onboard wind turbine blade
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
Wind turbines are becoming a larger source of renewable energy in the United States. However, most of the designs are geared toward the weather conditions seen in Europe. Also, in the United States, manufacturers have been increasing the length of the turbine blades, often made of composite materials, to maximize power output. As a result of the more severe loading conditions in the United States and the material level flaws in composite structures, blade failure has been a more common occurrence in the U.S. than in Europe. Therefore, it is imperative that a structural health monitoring system be incorporated into the design of the wind turbines in order to monitor flaws before they lead to a catastrophic failure. Due to the rotation of the turbine and issues related to lightning strikes, the best way to implement a structural health monitoring system would be to use a network of wireless sensor nodes. In order to provide power to these sensor nodes, piezoelectric, thermoelectric and photovoltaic energy harvesting techniques are examined on a cross section of a CX-100 wind turbine blade in order to determine the feasibility of powering individual nodes that would compose the sensor network.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 971284
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-09-06386; LA-UR-09-6386; TRN: US201004%%46
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: IMAC XXVIII International modal analysis conference ; February 1, 2010 ; Jacksonville, FL
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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