Development and Static Performance Test of EPDM-Encapsulated FBG Sensors for Wind Turbine Blade Deformation...

Wind turbine blades serve as the core components of wind energy conversion systems, and their safe and stable operation is pivotal to the operational efficiency and reliability of wind farms. However, prolonged operation in harsh environmental conditions such as strong winds, heavy rainfall, ultraviolet radiation, and temperature fluctuations renders wind turbine blades susceptible to fatigue damage and structural failure. Aiming at the drawbacks of traditional electromagnetic sensors, including their vulnerability to lightning strikes and poor corrosion resistance, as well as the elastic modulus mismatch between existing fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-encapsulated sensors and wind turbine blade structures, this study selects the ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) as the encapsulation material to develop EPDM-FBG strain sensors. The effectiveness of the proposed sensor in blade strain monitoring is ultimately verified via static load model tests on small-scale wind turbine blades. Test results demonstrate that the EPDM-FBG strain sensor exhibits excellent static strain sensing performance, with its test results being highly consistent with those of bare FBG sensors and a relative error of less than 5%, which can fully meet the practical requirements of static strain monitoring for wind turbine blades. This research provides a novel and reliable monitoring method for the health monitoring of wind turbine blades.