German research wind farm WiValdi: Planning, installation and testing of innovative research instrumentation for six wind turbine rotor blades

Abstract

Together with the partners from the German Research Alliance the German Aerospace Center is building the German research wind farm WiValdi (Wind Validation). The wind farm will consist of two standard wind turbines of type E-115 EP3 E4 and a smaller custom build research turbine. The setup of the wind farm is supported by national funding in the research project DFWind. Within DFWind the wind turbine rotor blade research instrumentation has been planned, installed during manufacturing and tested during rotor blade tests at IWES in Bremerhaven. The research instrumentation covers various fields of research from aeroelasticity, structural dynamics, structural health monitoring, vibroacoustic to loads and control. Different types of sensors and measurement systems have been integrated. The sensors vary from classical acceleration sensors over fiber optical acceleration, strain and temperature sensors to innovative continuous fiber optical strain sensors, ultrasonic sensor arrays and finally markers for digital image correlation from inside the blade and on the outer surface. The presentation will give insights in the sensor planning and testing, the instrumentation campaign during manufacturing process and the rotor blade tests before installation on the turbines.