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Application of self-healing technique to fibre reinforced polymer wind turbine blade

  • Fifo, Omosola;Ryan, Kevin;Basu, Biswajit
    • Smart Structures and Systems
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.593-606
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    • 2015
  • This paper presents a novel concept of healing some of the damages in wind turbine blades (WTBs) such as cracks and delamination. This is achieved through an inherent functioning autonomous repairing system. Such wind turbine blades have the benefit of reduced maintenance cost and increased operational period. Previous techniques of developing autonomous healing systems uses hollow glass fibres (HGFs) to deliver repairing fluids to damaged sites. HGFs have been reported with some limitations like, failure to fracture, which undermines their further usage. The self-healing technique described in this paper represents an advancement in the engineering of the delivery mechanism of a self-healing system. It is analogous to the HGF system but without the HGFs, which are replaced by multiple hollow channels created within the composite, inherently in the FRP matrix at fabrication. An in-house fabricated NACA 4412 WTB incorporating this array of network hollow channels was damaged in flexure and then autonomously repaired using the vascular channels. The blade was re-tested under flexure to ascertain the efficiency of the recovered mechanical properties.

A molecular-assisted alpha taxonomic study of the genus Centroceras (Ceramiaceae, Rhodophyta) in Bermuda reveals two novel species

  • Schneider, Craig W.;Cianciola, Elisabeth N.;Popolizio, Thea R.;Spagnuolo, Dylan S.;Lane, Christopher E.
    • ALGAE
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    • v.30 no.1
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    • pp.15-33
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    • 2015
  • When the generitype Centroceras clavulatum, a presumed cosmopolitan warm temperate to tropical red alga, was discovered to have a biogeographic distribution limited to the Pacific Ocean using molecular and morphological evidence, the taxonomy in the genus Centroceras was thrown into chaos worldwide. An analysis of what species was, or were, previously identified as C. clavulatum in Bermuda is the focus of the present molecular (COI-5P, rbcL) and morphological study. Two novel species are proposed, C. arcii sp. nov. and C. illaqueans sp. nov., and the distributions of three taxa recently segregated in the 'C. clavulatum complex' of the western Atlantic, C. gasparrinii, C. hyalacanthum, and C. micracanthum, have been expanded to include Bermuda. C. arcii is shown to be morphologically cryptic with C. micracanthum, and remains best distinguished by its COI-5P barcode sequence.

A monitoring system for wind turbines subjected to combined seismic and turbulent aerodynamic loads

  • Fitzgerald, Breiffni;Basu, Biswajit
    • Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.175-194
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    • 2017
  • Research to date has mainly focused on structural analysis and design of wind turbines considering turbulent aerodynamic loading. The combined effects of wind and seismic loading have not been studied by many researchers. With the recent expansion of wind turbines into seismically active regions research is now needed into the implications of seismic loading coupled with turbulent aerodynamic loading. This paper proposes a monitoring procedure for onshore horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs) subjected to this combined loading regime. The paper examines the impact of seismic loading on the 5-MW baseline HAWT developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). A modified version of FAST, an open-source program developed by NREL, is used to perform the dynamic analysis.

A comparative analysis of structural damage detection techniques by wavelet, kurtosis and pseudofractal methods

  • Pakrashi, Vikram;O'Connor, Alan;Basu, Biswajit
    • Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.489-500
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    • 2009
  • The aim of this paper is to compare wavelet, kurtosis and pseudofractal based techniques for structural health monitoring in the presence of measurement noise. A detailed comparison and assessment of these techniques have been carried out in this paper through numerical experiments for the calibration of damage extent of a simply supported beam with an open crack serving as an illustrative example. The numerical experiments are deemed critical due to limited amount of experimental data available in the field of singularity based detection of damage. A continuous detectibility map has been proposed for comparing various techniques qualitatively. Efficiency surfaces have been constructed for wavelet, kurtosis and pseudofractal based calibration of damage extent as a function of damage location and measurement noise level. Levels of noise have been identified for each technique where a sudden drop of calibration efficiency is observed marking the onset of damage masking regime by measurement noise.