Structural health monitoring of an offshore wind turbine tower using iFEM methodology

With the increasing popularity of wind energy, offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are currently experiencing rapid development. The tower is one of the most significant components of the OWT. However, the tower will not only stand its own weight and weight of the top structure, but also be surrounded by harsh wave and wind loading conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a structural health monitoring (SHM) system to monitor the health condition of the OWT towers in real-time. In this study, inverse Finite Element Method (iFEM) is applied to monitor the tower of an OWT under both static and dynamic loading conditions. The total displacements and von Mises stresses obtained from iFEM analysis are compared against reference results and optimum sensor locations are determined.