Structural damage detection for hybrid offshore wind and tidal current turbine

Abstract

Among various renewable energies, wind power has more commercially competitiveness and has been developed very fast for several decades. Further, recently to efficiently utilize ocean resources, there is rising interest on the integrated exploitations of an offshore wind and tidal current energy. Such the hybrid offshore wind and tidal current turbine (HOWTCT) plays an important role in supporting the energy-generating components (blades, hub and nacelle) and resisting wind and wave loads. The purpose of present study is to develop a SHM system and damage detection for the supporting structure of HOWTCT through indoor experiments. Accelerometers at four height levels were installed from the ground to the top. The coherence function between two sets of the measured acceleration responses was employed, and then the averaged integrations of coherence (AIC) function with the frequency were used to identify the damage detection. As a result, it was found that the damage detection for the foundation damage with the operations of wind turbine, tidal turbine and wind and tidal turbines was accurately predicted by the AIC function. © 2017 International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering. All rights reserved.