Vibration Energy Harvesting for Information Transmission on Offshore Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

Composite materials have great advantages in their mechanical properties while being lightweight, and are widely used in various fields, especially in aerospace, automotive and medical sectors. However, the uncontrollability and difficulty in prediction of damage propagation has limited its application circumstances. Early damage detection through in situ monitoring from integrated wireless sensors is regarded as an effective solution. Therefore, energy harvesting from the vibration of wind turbine blade can be a key enabling technology to power the wireless sensors for in situ damage monitoring under complex application circumstance, where conventional power supply is not feasible due to the bulky alterations to the blade structural profile. This paper investigates the integration of macro-fibre composite (MFC) onto glass fibre composite wind turbine and explores the capacity of power generation based on ambient vibration, in order to equip the blades with piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting (PVEH) to power associated structure health monitoring (SHM) functionalities in future studies.