Dynamic displacement measurement of a wind turbine tower using accelerometers: tilt error compensation and validation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Authors

External Research Organisations

  • University of Bremen
View graph of relations

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)193-205
Number of pages13
JournalWind Energy Science
Volume10
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 22 Jan 2025

Abstract

For vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) of wind turbine support structures, accelerometers are often used. Besides the structural acceleration, the measured quantity also contains the acceleration component due to gravity, which is known as tilt error. This tilt error must be quantified and taken into account; otherwise it can lead to incorrect evaluations, especially in the fatigue estimation or the dynamic displacement estimation using accelerometers. The standard solution is to explicitly measure the tilt angle, which requires an additional sensor for each measurement point and is not applicable for already recorded measurements without tilt information. Therefore, a novel tilt error compensation method is presented by using the static bending line. As a result the influence of the tilt error can be estimated in advance, and no additional sensors for tilt measurement are needed. The compensation method is applied to accelerometer measurements of an onshore wind turbine tower and validated with contactless absolute distance measurements from a terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) system. The position and frequency-dependent tilt error of the investigated tower has a significant influence on the quasi-static motion below 0.2 Hz with a minimum amplitude error of 9 %, whereas the normalised bending mode shapes around 0.3 Hz are only slightly affected.

Cite this

Dynamic displacement measurement of a wind turbine tower using accelerometers: tilt error compensation and validation. / Jonscher, Clemens; Helming, Paula; Märtins, David et al.
In: Wind Energy Science, Vol. 10, No. 1, 22.01.2025, p. 193-205.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Jonscher C, Helming P, Märtins D, Fischer A, Bonilla D, Hofmeister B et al. Dynamic displacement measurement of a wind turbine tower using accelerometers: tilt error compensation and validation. Wind Energy Science. 2025 Jan 22;10(1):193-205. doi: 10.5194/wes-10-193-2025
Jonscher, Clemens ; Helming, Paula ; Märtins, David et al. / Dynamic displacement measurement of a wind turbine tower using accelerometers : tilt error compensation and validation. In: Wind Energy Science. 2025 ; Vol. 10, No. 1. pp. 193-205.
Download
@article{8bb8fe12330b4cc3878a5463e188f706,
title = "Dynamic displacement measurement of a wind turbine tower using accelerometers: tilt error compensation and validation",
abstract = "For vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) of wind turbine support structures, accelerometers are often used. Besides the structural acceleration, the measured quantity also contains the acceleration component due to gravity, which is known as tilt error. This tilt error must be quantified and taken into account; otherwise it can lead to incorrect evaluations, especially in the fatigue estimation or the dynamic displacement estimation using accelerometers. The standard solution is to explicitly measure the tilt angle, which requires an additional sensor for each measurement point and is not applicable for already recorded measurements without tilt information. Therefore, a novel tilt error compensation method is presented by using the static bending line. As a result the influence of the tilt error can be estimated in advance, and no additional sensors for tilt measurement are needed. The compensation method is applied to accelerometer measurements of an onshore wind turbine tower and validated with contactless absolute distance measurements from a terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) system. The position and frequency-dependent tilt error of the investigated tower has a significant influence on the quasi-static motion below 0.2 Hz with a minimum amplitude error of 9 %, whereas the normalised bending mode shapes around 0.3 Hz are only slightly affected.",
author = "Clemens Jonscher and Paula Helming and David M{\"a}rtins and Andreas Fischer and David Bonilla and Benedikt Hofmeister and Tanja Grie{\ss}mann and Raimund Rolfes",
year = "2025",
month = jan,
day = "22",
doi = "10.5194/wes-10-193-2025",
language = "English",
volume = "10",
pages = "193--205",
number = "1",

}

Download

TY - JOUR

T1 - Dynamic displacement measurement of a wind turbine tower using accelerometers

T2 - tilt error compensation and validation

AU - Jonscher, Clemens

AU - Helming, Paula

AU - Märtins, David

AU - Fischer, Andreas

AU - Bonilla, David

AU - Hofmeister, Benedikt

AU - Grießmann, Tanja

AU - Rolfes, Raimund

PY - 2025/1/22

Y1 - 2025/1/22

N2 - For vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) of wind turbine support structures, accelerometers are often used. Besides the structural acceleration, the measured quantity also contains the acceleration component due to gravity, which is known as tilt error. This tilt error must be quantified and taken into account; otherwise it can lead to incorrect evaluations, especially in the fatigue estimation or the dynamic displacement estimation using accelerometers. The standard solution is to explicitly measure the tilt angle, which requires an additional sensor for each measurement point and is not applicable for already recorded measurements without tilt information. Therefore, a novel tilt error compensation method is presented by using the static bending line. As a result the influence of the tilt error can be estimated in advance, and no additional sensors for tilt measurement are needed. The compensation method is applied to accelerometer measurements of an onshore wind turbine tower and validated with contactless absolute distance measurements from a terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) system. The position and frequency-dependent tilt error of the investigated tower has a significant influence on the quasi-static motion below 0.2 Hz with a minimum amplitude error of 9 %, whereas the normalised bending mode shapes around 0.3 Hz are only slightly affected.

AB - For vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) of wind turbine support structures, accelerometers are often used. Besides the structural acceleration, the measured quantity also contains the acceleration component due to gravity, which is known as tilt error. This tilt error must be quantified and taken into account; otherwise it can lead to incorrect evaluations, especially in the fatigue estimation or the dynamic displacement estimation using accelerometers. The standard solution is to explicitly measure the tilt angle, which requires an additional sensor for each measurement point and is not applicable for already recorded measurements without tilt information. Therefore, a novel tilt error compensation method is presented by using the static bending line. As a result the influence of the tilt error can be estimated in advance, and no additional sensors for tilt measurement are needed. The compensation method is applied to accelerometer measurements of an onshore wind turbine tower and validated with contactless absolute distance measurements from a terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) system. The position and frequency-dependent tilt error of the investigated tower has a significant influence on the quasi-static motion below 0.2 Hz with a minimum amplitude error of 9 %, whereas the normalised bending mode shapes around 0.3 Hz are only slightly affected.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85216220412&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5194/wes-10-193-2025

DO - 10.5194/wes-10-193-2025

M3 - Article

VL - 10

SP - 193

EP - 205

JO - Wind Energy Science

JF - Wind Energy Science

SN - 2366-7443

IS - 1

ER -

By the same author(s)