Browsing by Author "Peairs, Daniel M."

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    Development of a Self-Sensing and Self-Healing Bolted Joint
    Peairs, Daniel M. (Virginia Tech, 2002-07-03)
    A self-sensing and self-healing bolted joint has been developed. This concept encompasses the areas of health monitoring, joint dynamics and smart materials. In order to detect looseness in a joint the impedance health monitoring method is used. A new method of making impedance measurements for health monitoring that greatly reduces the equipment cost and equipment size was developed. This facilitates implementation of the impedance technique in real-life field applications. Several proof of concept experiments are presented and compared to the traditional method of making impedance measurements. Investigations of bolted joint dynamics were conducted. A literature review of bolted joints and their diagnostics is presented. The application of the transfer impedance method is compared to standard modal tests on various bolt tensions. An investigation of damping in bolted joints was also made comparing a bolted and monolithic beam. Practical issues in adaptive bolted joints are investigated. This includes issues on activating/heating SMA actuators, connecting the actuators to the power source, size selection of SMA actuators and insulations. These issues are examined both experimentally and theoretically.
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    Impedance-Based Structural Health Monitoring of Wind Turbine Blades
    Pitchford, Corey (Virginia Tech, 2007-08-31)
    Wind power is a fast-growing source of non-polluting, renewable energy with vast potential. However, current wind technology must be improved before the potential of wind power can be fully realized. One of the key components in improving wind turbines is their blades. Blade failure is very costly because blade failure can damage other blades, the wind turbine itself, and possibly other wind turbines. A successful structural health monitoring (SHM) system incorporated into wind turbines could extend blade life and allow for less conservative designs. Impedance-based SHM is a method which has shown promise on a wide variety of structures. The technique utilizes small piezoceramic (PZT) patches attached to a structure as self-sensing actuators to both excite the structure with high-frequency excitations, and monitor any changes in structural mechanical impedance. By monitoring the electrical impedance of the PZT, assessments can be made about the integrity of the mechanical structure. Recent advances in hardware systems with onboard computing, including actuation and sensing, computational algorithms, and wireless telemetry, have improved the accessibility of the impedance method for in-field measurements. The feasibility of implementing impedance-based SHM on wind turbine blades is investigated in this work. Experimentation was performed to determine the capability of the method to detect damage on blades. First, tests were run to detect both indirect and actual forms of damage on a section of an actual wind turbine blade provided by Sandia National Laboratories. Additional tests were run on the same blade section using a high-frequency response function method of SHM for comparison. Finally, based on the results of the initial testing, the impedance method was utilized in an attempt to detect damage during a fatigue test of an experimental wind turbine blade at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's National Wind Technology Center.