Structural monitoring of a wind turbine steel tower – Part I: system description and calibration

This paper describes the development and calibration of a structural monitoring system installed in a 80 meters high steel wind tower supporting a 2.1 MW turbine Wind Class III IEC2a erected in the central part of Portugal. The several signals are measured at four different levels and include accelerations, strains on the tower wall and inside the connection bolts, inclinations and temperature. In order to correlate measurements with the wind velocity and direction and with the turbine operational parameters the corresponding signals are obtained directly from the turbine own monitoring system and are incorporated in the developed system. Results from the system calibration, the structural identification and the initial period of data acquisition are presented in this paper.