Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.7736/KSPE.2015.32.3.307

Development of Liquid Metal Strain Gauge for Measuring WT Blade's Deformation  

Park, In Kyum (Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Kangwon National University)
Seo, Youngho (Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Kangwon National University)
Kim, Byeong Hee (Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Kangwon National University)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering / v.32, no.3, 2015 , pp. 307-314 More about this Journal
Abstract
In this paper, the embedding type novel liquid metal strain gauge was developed for measuring the deformation of wind turbine blades. In general, the conventional methods for the SHM have many disadvantages such as frequency distortion in FBG sensors, the low gauge factor and mechanical failures in strain gauges and extremely sophisticated filtering in AE sensors. However, the liquid metal filled in a pre-confined micro channel shows dramatic characteristics such as high sensitivity, flexibility and robustnes! s to environment. To adopt such a high feasibility of the liquid metal in flexible sensor applications, the EGaIn was introduced to make flexible liquid metal strain gauges for the SHM. A micro channeled flexible film fabricated by the several MEMS processes and the PDMS replication was filled with EGaIn and wire-connected. Lots of experiments were conducted to investigate the performance of the developed strain gauges and verify the feasibility to the actual wind turbine blades health monitoring.
Keywords
EGaIn; Wind turbine blade; Liquid metal; Strain gauge; Structural health monitoring;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 2  (Citation Analysis)
연도 인용수 순위
1 Yang, B. and Sun, D., "Testing, Inspecting and Monitoring Technologies for Wind Turbine Blades: A Survey," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 22, pp. 515-526, 2013.   DOI
2 Kim, K., Lee, J. M., and Hwang, Y., "Determination of Engineering Strain Distribution in a Rotor Blade with Fibre Bragg Grating Array and a Rotary Optic Coupler," Optics and Lasers in Engineering, Vol. 46, No. 10, pp. 758-762, 2008.   DOI
3 Kim, S. W., Kim, E. H., Rim, M. S., Shrestha, P., and Lee, I., "Structural Performance Tests of Down Scaled Composite Wind Turbine Blade using Embedded Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors," International Journal of Aeronautical & Space Science, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 346-53, 2011.   DOI
4 Bang, H.-J., Kim, H.-I., and Lee, K.-S., "Measurement of Strain and Bending Deflection of a Wind Turbine Tower using Arrayed FBG Sensors," Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf., Vol. 13, No. 12, pp. 2121-2126, 2012.   DOI
5 Schubel, P., Crossley, R., Boateng, E., and Hutchinson, J., "Review of Structural Health and Cure Monitoring Techniques for Large Wind Turbine Blades," Renewable Energy, Vol. 51, pp. 113-123, 2013.   DOI
6 Blanch, M. J. and Dutton, A. G., "Acoustic Emission Monitoring of Field Tests of an Operating Wind Turbine," in Damage Assessment of Structures V, Dulieu-Barton, J. M., Brennan, M. J., Holford, K. M., and Worden, K.(Eds.), Key Engineering Materials, Vols. 245-246, pp. 475-482, 2003.
7 Rumsey, M. A. and Musial, W., "Application of Acoustic Emission Nondestructive Testing during Wind Turbine Blade Tests," Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Vol. 123, No. 4, pp. 270-270, 2001.   DOI
8 Mohammed, M. G. and Dickey, M. D., "Strain- Controlled Diffraction of Light from Stretchable Liquid Metal Micro-Components," Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 193, pp. 246-250, 2013.   DOI
9 Okamura, A. M. and Cutkosky, M. R., "Feature Detection for Haptic Exploration with Robotic Fingers," International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 20, No. 12, pp. 925-938, 2001.   DOI
10 Tajima, R., Kagami, S., Inaba, M., and Inoue, H., "Development of Soft and Distributed Tactile Sensors and the Application to a Humanoid Robot," Advanced Robotics, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 381-397, 2002.   DOI
11 Yang, L., Martin, L. J., Staiculescu, D., Wong, C., and Tentzeris, M. M., "Conformal Magnetic Composite RFID for Wearable RF and Bio-Monitoring Applications," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 56, No. 12, pp. 3223- 3230, 2008.   DOI
12 Hayes, G. J., So, J.-H., Qusba, A., Dickey, M. D., and Lazzi, G., "Flexible Liquid Metal Alloy (egain) Microstrip Patch Antenna," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 60, No. 5, pp. 2151- 2156, 2012.   DOI
13 Dickey, M. D., Chiechi, R. C., Larsen, R. J., Weiss, E. J., Weitz, D. A., and Whitesides, G. M., "Eutectic Gallium-Indium (EGaIn): A Liquid Metal Alloy for the Formation of Stable Structures in Microchannels at Room Temperature," Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 18, No. 7, pp. 1097-1104, 2008.   DOI
14 Daily, J. W. and Riley, W. F., "Hand-book on Experimental Mechanics," Prentice-Hall Englewood Cliffs, pp. 41-78, 1987.