Measurement and analysis of wind turbine blade mechanical load

The dynamical load measurement and fatigue estimation for Wind Turbine (WT) blade are quite challenging tasks due to the fact that real time varying wind induced loading is irregular and stochastic, and the associated load history affects the blade fatigue life in complex ways. The paper introduces a cost effective system combining mechanical load measurement and fatigue estimation for WT blade. In the developed system, the strain gauges and some inherent sensors equipped in WT are used to capture the blade load related datasets. Data acquisition, data validation and correction, load spectrum analysis, and blade fatigue lifetime estimation are integrated into a whole software. The blade load spectrum at each wind speed bin and the equivalent load spectrum are provided by means of rainflow cycle counting. The blade fatigue-lifetime is estimated via the long-term wind speed prediction, the Miner's linear superposition principle, and the linearized Goodman diagram derived from the fatigue data. The field exp...