WIND ENERGY

Wind Energ. (2015)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/we.1856

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Bi-axial neutral axis tracking for damage detection in

wind-turbine towers
Rohan N. Soman1, Pawel H. Malinowski1 and Wieslaw M. Ostachowicz1,2
1

Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences, 14, Fiszera Street, Gdansk 80-231, Poland
Faculty of Automotive and Construction Machinery Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Narbutta 84, 02-524 Warsaw,
Poland
2

ABSTRACT
This work concentrates on Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of a wind turbine tower. A decision level data fusion based
on bi-axial tracking of change in neutral axis (NA) position is proposed. A discrete Kalman Filter (KF) is employed for the
estimation of the NA in the presence of measurement noise from the strain sensors. The KF allows data fusion from the
strain sensors and the yaw mechanism for the accurate estimation of the NA. Any change in the NA position may be used
as an indicator for the presence and location of the damage. The ratio of the change in the NA along two perpendicular axes
is taken and used for the localization. The study has been carried out on the simulated nite element (FE) model of the wind
turbine tower and indicates that bi-axial NA tracking based on data fusion is indeed necessary and at the same time is
sensitive to damage. The sensitivity studies carried out indicate that the metric is robust enough to overcome the effects
of measurement noise and yawing of the nacelle. Copyright 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEYWORDS
structural health monitoring (SHM); damage detection; wind turbine tower; neutral axis (NA); kalman lter (KF); data fusion; strain
Correspondence
Rohan N. Soman, Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences, 14, Fiszera Street, Gdansk 80-231, Poland.
E-mail: rsoman@imp.gda.pl

Received 28 November 2014; Revised 23 February 2015; Accepted 5 April 2015

1. INTRODUCTION
Wind energy is seen as one of the most promising solutions to mans ever increasing demands of a clean source of energy.
But the main drawback of the wind energy is the high initial cost for setting up and maintenance. This makes the energy
more expensive than the conventional energy sources like fossil fuels and nuclear, and hence, it has not been widely
accepted. Thus, there is a concerted effort to reduce the cost of energy production. This can be achieved by increasing
the lifetime of the wind turbines, reducing maintenance costs and ensuring low downtime of the turbine. The lifetime
may be increased by ensuring a more robust design, while the maintenance cost and the downtime of the equipment
may be lowered through the use of condition monitoring and structural health monitoring (SHM) 1. SHM allows early
detection of damage and allows maintenance planning, which reduces the cost 2 and can allow us to avoid unnecessary
downtime, hence increasing the availability of the system.
The SHM needs to be low cost and suitable for continuous monitoring. The SHM techniques are based on the concept
that the change in mechanical properties of the structure will be captured by a change in its dynamic characteristics.3
Vibration-based damage indicators have been traditionally used because of their low cost implementation. Many vibrational parameters like changes in natural frequency 4, mode shapes 5, mode shape derivatives 6 and modal exibility indices
7
have been suggested in the literature. These methods are global level damage detection techniques and are sensitive to
large scale damage only and may not detect local level damage. Thus, there is an increasing trend to use strain sensors
for local level damage detection. Strain sensors are local level sensors and hence more sensitive to smaller levels of damage
8
. Many strain-based damage detection techniques have been proposed in literature, and their performance has even been
compared with displacement-based methods.911

Copyright 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

The SHM methods are still not up to the desired standards, and as such, there is a need for a robust damage detection technique. The discrepancy between the expected and the measured results of the different SHM techniques is mainly attributed to
the uncertainty in the measurement environment with respect to noise, temperature and excitation mechanism of the structure.
Thus, the search for an SHM system that will be able to detect small levels of damage, but at the same time be robust enough to
overcome the ambient noise and temperature changes, and detect damage under operational conditions is ongoing.
The use of SHM techniques in wind turbines is gaining prominence, especially with the use of offshore wind turbines
where costs of unscheduled maintenance are high and downtime results in major loss of revenue. Ciang et al. 12 and Hyers
et al. 13 provide reviews on condition-monitoring strategies for all wind turbine subsystems and components. Tower damage is the third most common damages in wind turbines.12 As a result, the research in the area of SHM of towers is now
becoming more signicant. Furthermore, as seen in Figure 1, the downtime for minor damages in towers (support and housing) is far less signicant (0.14 days) than in the case of major damage (28.01 days). So, there is a huge economic incentive
for early detection of minor failures through the use of proper SHM techniques for towers.
The most commonly used sensors for SHM of towers are accelerometers and displacement sensors.1517 These sensors
are suitable only for global damage identication. On the other hand, strain sensors allow a more local damage detection
approach. Bas et al. and Bang et al. make use of bre Bragg grating (FBG)-based strain sensors for SHM of tower.18,19
Bas et al. 18 have studied the structural response of the tower to various stopping events, which may be used as baseline
for detecting deterioration of the tower over a period of time. Bang et al. 19 have studied the stability of the FBG sensors
over time and their ability for dynamic strain assessment on a real structure. Benedetti et al. 20 make use of conventional
strain gauges for the fatigue monitoring near welds of the tower. The results obtained are quite encouraging, but the use of
this method is restricted to known hot spots of potential damage.
Thus, in this paper, a method for damage detection of towers is proposed, which is able to detect lower levels of damage
throughout the structure, without a priori knowledge of the structural behaviour. The methodology proposed is a customization of neutral axis (NA) as a damage-sensitive feature for tower structures. The NA has been proposed for damage detection
in bridges.2123 The application of the methodology directly to tower structures is not possible because of the yawing of the
turbine and the resulting mass and stress redistribution. Thus, a robust methodology has been proposed to overcome these
application-specic challenges and further the effectiveness of the methodology for more precise damage isolation.
The present research builds on the research work presented by the authors in 24 and 25. In this paper, the methodology for
damage detection using NA as a metric is extended to bi-axial neutral tracking using decision level data fusion. It was
shown in 24 that the position of NA of the tower structure may be used as a robust damage indicator. This is possible as
the NA is the property of the cross-section of the tower independent of the bulk temperature effects and the ambient wind
loading. The position of the NA can be assessed by measuring the strains on opposite surfaces of the tower in bending. The
NA of the tower subject to unknown loading both in magnitude and direction was estimated using the discrete Kalman
Filter (KF).26,27 The authors then extended the methodology to include the effect of yaw of the nacelle on the observability
of the NA in.25 But even then, only the determination of the altitude of the damage was possible. In this study, through the
use of bi-axial tracking and decision level data fusion, a better resolution of the damage location is possible. The study is
undertaken on a nite element (FE) model of the 10 MW wind turbine tower, which is seen as the future of offshore wind

Figure 1. Reliability characteristics of several sub-assemblies.14

Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/we

R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

turbine industry.28 The study also includes some sensitivity studies in order to establish the robustness of NA tracking as a
damage indicator under different damage locations, damage extents and presence of measurement noise.
The paper is organized as follows: rstly, the concept of NA and the theoretical formulation of the use of NA as a damage
indicator and how it can be estimated by measuring the strain at diametrically opposite locations is explained. The section also
explains the theoretical background and the implementation of the KF. The next section explains the FE modelling approach
used for the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) Reference Wind Turbine (RWT) 28 and the loading scenarios for the
simulations. The section on numerical simulation rst establishes the need for yaw tracking followed by the need of KF for data
fusion. The section on bi-axial NA tracking introduces the decision level data fusion and in turn allows us to locate the damage
with better resolution and as such is the main contribution of the paper. Some sensitivity studies of the indicator to measurement
noise and severity of damage have also been carried out in this section. The last section then draws some conclusions based on
the observations made in the simulated scenarios and also points at the area of future research.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. Neutral axis
The primary function of the tower structure is to support the hub and the nacelle of the wind turbine. The nacelle and the
hub are axial loads that are eccentrically loaded on the tower. This eccentric loading gives rise to axial compressive loads as
well as bending loads as shown in Figure 2.
The axial compression is uniform over the entire cross-section while the bending loads will be tensile at one end and
compressive at the other. Furthermore, the tower experiences wind loads, which result in bending strains in the tower.
The axial strains are given by Equation (1), while Equation (2) gives the bending strains.

axial

F
EA

Figure 2. Flexural strain distribution over the beam cross-section subject to eccentric loading.

Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/we

(1)

R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

where, axial is the axial strain, F is the net axial force due to the nacelle, hub and other wind turbine components, E is the
Youngs modulus and A is the area of the cross-section.
bending

Mby
EI

(2)

where, bending is the longitudinal strain in bending, Mb is the net bending moment at the cross-section due to wind loading
and eccentricity and I is the area moment of inertia and y is the distance from the NA to the location of the sensor.23
Thus, one surface of the tower experiences a combination of two axial compressions (right side in Figure 2) while the
other end experiences a combination of compressive load because of the weight and tensile load due to the bending (left
side in Figure 2).
The net strains on the right and left surface in Figure 2 are given by Equation (3), while
r=l axial bending

(3)

If the line connecting the two strain levels is extended, there will be a point where the strain experience will be zero,
which is identied as the NA point. The NA of the section is a function of the exural rigidity of the structure and does
not depend on the applied bending loads, thus by measuring the strains at the opposite edges of the beam, the NA can
be located, which in turn may be used as an indicator of the damage. Figure 2 explains the abbreviations used and the concept. The NA can thus be estimated based on the strain measurements.
This NA location (L) may be found by linear extrapolation and is given by equation


bending  axial w
l w
L

2bending
2l  r

(4)

It should be noted that the dimensions of the NA location are that of distance, so this metric may be represented as a
dimensionless quantity NA estimate (NAE) given by equation
NAE

2L
w

(5)

The NAE can be calculated at each time instant based on measured strains at that instance using Equation (5). This
approach is termed as direct estimation in further sections, or they can be estimated based on the previous estimates and
updated at each time instant using the new measurements using KF.
2.2. Kalman Filter
The KF is a set of mathematical equations that provides an efcient computational (recursive) solution of the least-squares
method.26 Theoretically, KF combines a systems dynamic model (physical laws of motion) and measurements (sensor
readings) to form an estimate of the systems varying quantities (system state) that is better than the estimate of the system
obtained by measurement alone.26
The KF allows estimation of the state variable x of a discrete time controlled process governed by the linear stochastic
difference equation. In the absence of the control scalar, it can be given by Equation (6).26
xk1 Ak xk wk

(6)

where A is the state transition matrix and wk is the white process noise and k indicates the time step.
The measurement equation is given by Equation (7).
zk Hxk vk

(7)

where H is the measurement matrix that relates to the observation zk and vk is the measurement noise.
The goal of using KF is to nd an equation that computes a posteriori state xk/k as a linear combination of an a priori
estimate xk/k-1 and a weighted difference between an actual measurement zk and a measurement prediction H xk/k-1 as shown
in Equation (8).
xk=k xk=k1 K zk  Hxk=k1

(8)

Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

where K is the Kalman gain. The value of K is chosen to minimize the error covariance. There are several forms of the K
matrix discussed in literature.29,30 One form of this matrix used for the gain computation is given by Equation (9).

1
K k Pk=k1 H Tk H k Pk=k1 H Tk Rk
(9)
where P is the error covariance matrix and Rk is the measurement noise covariance matrix.
Figure 3 concisely explains the implementation of the KF.
In the present application, the state estimate variable is Xk = [NAE, 1, ]T, NAE in undamaged condition should remain
constant independent of the applied loads, and the second variable tracked is the constant value 1. This constant is incorporated to ensure a correct relation between the state estimation matrix, the observation matrix and the measurement matrix.
The added benet of the constant is it makes the measurement matrix square, which allows faster computations. The third
component of the vector is the variable for the yaw angle. It is a linear estimate of the measurement from the sensor. The
input for the KF algorithm is essentially the state transition matrix (A), which relates the state estimate variable in time. In
this case, A is a unity matrix of dimension 3 as the state estimates are random and not co-related in time. The other input is
the measurement matrix (H), which links the state estimation variable Xk, and the measurement variable (Zk) at each time
step (measurement from the sensors). The H matrix takes into consideration the observability of the NA based on the locations of the sensors and is designed for accurate system modelling while maintaining the linearity of the measurement
step. In the present case, Zk = [l, r, ]T vector consists of the strain measurements from the left (l) and the right side
(r) of the tower and the yaw angle measurement () of the nacelle.
2.3. Damage sensitive feature
As mentioned, in earlier section, the NA location is independent of the loading conditions and depends only on the condition of the structure. Thus, the % change in the NAE is taken as the damage sensitive feature and is given by Equation (10).
NAE

NAEhealthy  NAEmonitored
100 %
NAEhealthy

(10)

The NAEhealthy is developed at the time of the installation of sensors when the structure is known to be in healthy
condition. NAEmonitored is the estimate at every time step. If the % change exceeds a certain threshold, an alarm is raised indicating damage. This threshold is based on engineering judgement.

3. FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING

The proposed methodology was veried on a simulated FE model of the DTU 10 MW RWT.28 The tower is a 115.630 m
tall hollow steel structure. The outer diameter varies linearly from 8.3 m at the base to 5.5 m at the top of the tower. The
tower is divided into 10 sections where the wall thickness is constant in each section, but gradually decreasing from the
bottom to the top (Figure 4). The tower is encastred at the bottom. The tower is made from steel S355 with a Youngs modulus of 210 GPa, Poissons ratio 0.3 and the density 8500 kg/m3 (8% increase of the density to account for the secondary
structural components). The model was simulated in commercial FE modelling software ABAQUS,31 using shell elements,
based on the design data in the reference.28

Figure 3. Flow chart for the implementation of the KF. X is the estimate of the state, A is the state transition matrix, P is the state variance matrix, K is the Kalman gain, H is the measurement matrix, z is the measurement variable and the k indicates the time step k.
Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/we

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Figure 4. Finite element modelling details of the tower.

The nacelle and hub loads were applied as point loads at specied eccentricity and height indicated from the design specications. A random wind pressure was simulated with the peak wind pressure based on the Eurocodes.32
The wind pressure was applied on the surface area facing the wind, in order to compute the force. The force increases
according to the wind prole power law along the height of the tower, 33 and the wind loads were varied accordingly on
the structure. The applied wind loads were similar to those experienced by the tower in actual operation. The dynamic loads
on the tower were simulated for a period of 30 s. The blades, however, were assumed to be pitched into a full aerodynamic
brake position to ensure minimal rotor motion and consequent change in mass distribution, which may affect the NA.34
The dynamic direct analysis was carried out in ABAQUS, which uses the modal superposition for estimating the displacements and the strain, so in order to achieve accurate results, and limit the computational load, the number of extracted mode
shapes was 50. The mesh size of the element was then chosen in order to achieve stable and smooth mode shapes for the
extracted modes.

4. NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS
Numerical simulations were carried out on FE model described in the previous section.
The numerical simulations were carried out
to establish the need for yaw tracking for accurate estimation of NA,
to exhibit the robustness and performance of the KF-based NA tracking methodology as compared with the direct estimation method,
to demonstrate the use of NAE as a damage sensitive feature in presence of noise, and
to show the effectiveness of bi-axial NA tracking for accurate damage isolation.

4.1. Effect of Yaw on NA Location

As shown in Equation (4), the NA location is directly proportional to the axial strain and inversely proportional to the bending strains. In ideal conditions, the axial load experienced will not change with the yaw angle. On the other hand, the
Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/we

R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

bending moment along the axis changes with the yaw angle. This is because of the changing perpendicular distance between the point of loading and the axis about which the strain is measured. This distance is the cosine component of the
yaw angle along x axis and the sine component of the yaw angle along y axis. As a result, the NA location changes with
the yaw angle. The NA location change to the yaw angle is plotted in Figure 5. The NA being inversely proportional to
the cosine component plots a curve similar to the secant function of the yaw angle.
As can be clearly seen in Figure 5, the location of the NA undergoes signicant changes, and hence, as such needs to be
monitored quantity for robust damage detection.

4.2. KF for NA estimation

The KF is a powerful tool for the estimation of the state variables especially in the presence of measurement noise. So, the
use of KF will improve the estimation. Figure 6 shows the qualitative relative performance of the KF for the estimation NA
compared with the direct estimation method. Five different cases varying the measurement noise for the strain and yaw angle measurement are considered in order to check the robustness of the KF-based estimation. Table I also shows the quantitative superiority of the KF-based methods.
As seen in Table I, the standard deviation of the KF-based estimation is orders of magnitude lower than the direct estimation method, especially in the presence of measurement noise. It should be noted that because of the presence of

Figure 5. Plot of NA location against Yaw angle along the x axis.

Figure 6. Comparison between direct and KF estimation methods. (a) 0% noise for strain and yaw angle, (b) 5% noise for strain and
0% noise for yaw angle, (c) 10% noise for strain and 0% noise for yaw angle, (d) 0% noise for strain and 5% noise for yaw angle and (e)
5% noise for strain and 5% noise for yaw angle.

Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

Table I. Statistical performance of estimators (NAE).

Scenario
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

KF estimation
Standard deviation
(mean)

Direct estimation
Standard deviation
(mean)

0.0444
(1.633)
0.0474
(1.633)
0.0507
(1.635)
0.0044
(1.633)
0.0499
(1.633)

0.1064
(1.637)
0.1862
(1.622)
0.4527
(1.666)
0.1168
(1.641)
0.2111
(1.686)

measurement noise, the mean of the direct prediction changes appreciably, this in turn directly affects the accuracy of the
damage detection methodology. Hence, the use of KF estimator is necessary.
Kalman Filter is indeed a very robust tool, in addition to the sensitivity studies in presence of measurement noise,
more studies were performed for different values of initial guess of NA location and different process noise estimates. These studies indicate that the initialization of the KF does not affect the nal NAE estimate. An improper
initialization just affects the time required for achieving the convergence to the true value of the NAE.35 This robustness to initialization allows easy implementation to real strain data from the wind turbine. The KF-based NA estimation has been applied to strain data available from the Nordtank NTK500/41 wind turbine and may be found in.36
The implementation of the KF was carried out based on engineering judgement alone and yield very promising
results.
4.3. Bi-axial NA tracking for damage detection
The sensor pairs are located perpendicular to each other, as indicated in Figure 4, and at the centre of each element. As such,
if the damage is at any location not in the vicinity, the observability of the damage is in the form of the sine and the cosine
component. Furthermore, because of the non-linearity, the damage may be detected, but the isolation of the damage may be
a problem. Thus, the bi-axial NA tracking data should be combined in order to get more realistic damage isolation. The
intuitive way of combination is by taking a ratio of the observed NA along the two axes. Although this may yield an approximate estimate of the location, it cannot be applied directly. It should be kept in mind that the periodicity for sine and
cosine is 2 while that for tan ratio is thus leading to loss of directionality. Thus, a decision level data fusion is necessary,
where the change in the directionality is overcome by proper study of the change in the NA location along both the sensor
axes. The decision level data fusion refers to the use of the individual signs of the change in the NA location in order to
make an assessment of the damage location.
The damage detection strategy is based on the principle of change in the NA location in healthy and damaged state. The
damage will be indicated when the relative change in the location is more than a certain threshold. This threshold needs to
be determined based on engineering judgement, taking into consideration the probability of positive false detection and
negative false detection and risk to the entire structure. Positive false detection occurs when a signicant damage goes undetected, while the negative false detection occurs when the damage alarm is raised when there is no damage in the structure. In order to quantify the threshold based on probability, several damage scenarios were studied under different
simulated noise levels. The threshold was set at 1% change in NA location, when the yaw angle measurement and bi-axial
NA tracking are carried out.
Equation (11) gives the location of the damage in terms of the angle without taking the signs of the individual change of
NA locations into consideration (without fusion).


NAEB
DL tan1
(11)
NAEA
where, DL is the damage location in degrees (), % NAEB is the percent relative change in the NAE at B, while %
NAEA is the percent relative change in the NAE at A.
The notations B and A are indicated in Figure 7, which also shows the different damage scenarios.
For accurate detection of location, the difference in the periodicity of the tangent function and sine and cosine functions
should be noted.
Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

Figure 7. Damage scenarios indicating the need for bi-axial NA tracking.

Table II shows quantitatively that the approach is valid, at the same time, decision level data fusion is necessary for
accurate isolation of damage.
The damage scenarios I and II indicate the validity of the decision level data fusion, and taking the ratio of the changes in
NA is a valid technique for fusion. The damage isolation for cases I and II is valid without fusion as the damage lies in the
9090 range. The damage scenario III is a point diametrically opposite to II, and it shows the signicance of decision
level data fusion. If the signs corresponding to the change of the location are not taken into account, the isolation gives a
diametrically opposite point that may be termed as false isolation of the damage (shown in grey background), and hence,
the decision level data fusion is necessary. The damage scenario IV indicates that when the damage is at locations perpendicular to one of the axes, the results obtained for the isolation are not accurate, but this in essence proves that bi-axial tracking is
indeed necessary. Also, change in the location of NA in scenario IV in the estimate at A is signicant, and hence, false
detection of the damage is highly unlikely. The high change exceeding 10% also indicates very close proximity of the damage
to the strain sensors and gives further idea about the location of the damage. Furthermore, the decision level data fusion will
recognize that the threshold for the damage detection has not been exceeded (shown in grey background), and as such the data
should not be used, thus making the decision level data fusion-based strategy more robust against false localization.
4.4. NA-based damage detection
As explained in the earlier section, the NA of the cross-section of the tower is the property of the condition of the structure
and may be used as a damage indicator.
In order to validate the use of NA as damage indicator, articial damage was introduced in one element of the tower, by
reducing the exural rigidity of that particular element by 20%. Reduction of exural rigidity is a valid damage simulation
strategy as indicated by 24. It may be treated equivalent to loss of material thickness because of corrosion or cracking and is a
commonly used strategy for global level damage simulation in bridge structures 1. The simulated damage was detected by comparing the NAE of the damage and the undamaged element. The relative change in the location of the NA is given in Table III.
The damage is detected if the change in the NA estimation of the damaged and undamaged states is more than a specied
threshold, which is determined on engineering judgement. As can be clearly observed, even in the presence of measurement
noise, there is a signicant difference in the change of the NAE of the damage element and the others, so the chances for a
false detection are quite minimal, and as such a lower threshold may be possible 1% in the case where yaw angle is being
Table II. Bi-axial NA tracking for damage detection.

Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

Table III. NA-based damage detection in presence of noise.

Table IV. Performance of NA with changing severity of damage.

Damage extent
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%

Undamaged NAE

Damaged NAE

NAE (%)

7.008
7.008
7.008
7.008
7.008

7.160
7.276
7.374
7.479
7.593

2.169
3.825
5.215
6.717
8.340

tracked as well. The use of yaw tracking allows this higher condence, and as such is an advantage for detecting lower
levels of damage.
4.5. Sensitivity to Severity of Damage
Ideally, the damage metric should be able to detect even minor changes in the system, but in actual practice, these changes
are often masked, by changes in ambient condition changes and measurement noise. Hence, the sensitivity to damage is
investigated.
Table IV indicates the percent change in the NAE with change in the damage severity.
It can be seen that damage above 15% severity of damage can be easily detected through the tracking of NA, and as such
the methodology promises to be better than the conventional vibration-based damage detection methods, which are unable
to detect such low levels of damage in the presence of same levels of measurement noise.24

5. CONCLUSIONS
The paper proposes bi-axial tracking and decision level data fusion for a more accurate damage localization. The methodology is based on tracking of NA along two perpendicular axes, using KF-based estimator. The study rst establishes the
effect of yaw on the measured strain and in turn the tracked NA. Then it establishes the merits for the use of KF for NA
tracking estimation and data fusion of yaw angle and measured strain. This KF-based NA estimation is then used to detect
damage in the simulated tower structure of the 10 MW DTU RWT.
Wind Energ. (2015) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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R. N. Soman, P. H. Malinowski and W. M. Ostachowicz

Bi-axial NA tracking for SHM in towers

The study indicates that the NA is a property of the condition of the structure and remains relatively unaffected by the
measurement noise. Furthermore, the robustness of the metric has been studied in the presence of measurement noise. From
the results obtained, it can be seen that the bi-axial NA tracking is a promising SHM methodology for improved damage
isolation.
The authors believe that the methodology proposed is robust to the effects of ambient temperature. The tower being a
metallic structure will undergo only bulk temperature effects. The temperature gradient if any will be extremely low,
and in such conditions, the NA position is insensitive to temperature changes, thus making the methodology insensitive
to ambient condition changes.
The FBG-based sensors are durable, have a long life and are relatively easy to install. The instrumentation similar to the
one assumed in the paper has been carried out in.19,33 Once the strain data are available, the setting up of KF needs low
expertise, as the NAE estimate is robust even if the initialization of the KF is incorrect 35 and has been successfully implemented in.36
The present study aims at giving a proof of concept and the validity of the use of data fusion for NA tracking for damage
detection in tower structures in the presence of yawing. The authors acknowledge that the actual loading conditions inservice and the pitching and the rotation of the blades may increase the complexity for the use of the metric. The rotation
of the blades will change the load distribution in bending, which in turn will affect the strains measured; these effects may
be compensated for by fusing the rotation speed of the wind turbine in the estimation process. Similarly, pitch angle too
affects the strain response of the tower, as shown in.18 Thus, a more inclusive fusion of data from all the different sensors
available is necessary to compensate for these effects and as such is identied as the next step of the research. In addition,
more realistic damage scenarios, like fatigue-induced cracks, need to be simulated, and the sensitivity of the method needs
to be validated in these scenarios.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the European Commission for their research grant under the project FP7-PEOPLE2012 ITN 309395 MARE-WINT (new Materials and REliablity in offshore WINd Turbines technology). The authors
would also like to thank DTU Wind Energy, for providing valuable information for the modeling of the ten MW RWT
towers for the purpose of this study. The authors are also grateful to TASK-CI for allowing the use of their computational
resources. The opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reect those of the sponsors.

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