Incipient Crack Detection in Composite Wind Turbine Blades
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Chonbuk National University, Korea
- Chonnam National University, Korea
- Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, VA
This paper presents some analysis results for incipient crack detection in a 9-meter CX-100 wind turbine blade that underwent fatigue loading to failure. The blade was manufactured to standard specifications, and it underwent harmonic excitation at its first resonance using a hydraulically-actuated excitation system until reaching catastrophic failure. This work investigates the ability of an ultrasonic guided wave approach to detect incipient damage prior to the surfacing of a visible, catastrophic crack. The blade was instrumented with piezoelectric transducers, which were used in an active, pitchcatch mode with guided waves over a range of excitation frequencies. The performance results in detecting incipient crack formation in the fiberglass skin of the blade is assessed over the range of frequencies in order to determine the point at which the incipient crack became detectable. Higher excitation frequencies provide consistent results for paths along the rotor blade's carbon fiber spar cap, but performance falls off with increasing excitation frequencies for paths off of the spar cap. Lower excitation frequencies provide more consistent performance across all sensor paths.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Korean National Research Foundation
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1049995
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-12-24351; TRN: US201218%%411
- Resource Relation:
- Journal Volume: 25; Journal Issue: 5; Conference: First International Conference on Advances in Structural Health Management and Composite Structures ; 2012-08-29 - 2012-08-31 ; Jeonju, Jeonbuk, Korea, South
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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