Load Reduction in Wind Energy Converters Using Individual Pitch Control

Abstract

To capture the maximum amount of energy with low cost, wind turbine should be large and individual pitch control (IPC) technique has to be considered. Asymetric loads on the rotor blades experienced by wind speed and gravitational force might cause fatigue and damage to the blades. Consequently, it is important to consider health monitoring of the wind energy converters to detect early structural problems. For this purpose, reliable and efficient optical grating sensors are added at the root of the blades to sense stresses and strains caused by the wind and the gravitational forces. The purpose of this work is to develop a simple model of the blade to study the moments generated by the wind and the gravity at each blade. It is shown that the calculated values of the strains and stresses agree with the values previous calculations.