scholarly journals Fatigue Behavior of Smart Composites with Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors for Offshore Applications

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Monssef Drissi-Habti ◽  
Venkadesh Raman

Continuous inspection of critical zones is essential to monitor the state of strain within offshore wind blades, thus, enabling appropriate actions to be taken when needed to avoid heavy maintenance. Wind-turbine blades contain various substructures made of composites, sandwich panel, and bond-joined parts that need reliable Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) techniques. Embedded, distributed Fiber-Optic Sensors (FOS) are one of the most promising techniques that are commonly used for large-scale smart composite structures. They are chosen as monitoring systems for their small size, being noise-free, and low electrical risk characteristics. In recent works, we have shown that embedded FOSs can be positioned linearly and/or in whatever position with the scope of providing pieces of information about actual strain in specific locations. However, linear positioning of distributed FOS fails to provide all strain parameters, whereas sinusoidal sensor positioning has been shown to overcome this issue. This method can provide multiparameter strains over the whole area when the sensor is embedded. Nevertheless, and beyond what a sensor can offer as valuable information, the fact remains that it is a “flaw” from the perspective of mechanics and materials. In this article and through some mechanical tests on smart composites, evidence was given that the presence of embedded FOS influences the mechanical behavior of smart composites, whether for quasi-static or fatigue tests, under 3-point bending. Some issues directly related to the fiber-architecture have to be solved.

Author(s):  
Jeroen Van Wittenberghe ◽  
Philippe Thibaux ◽  
Maarten Van Poucke

Abstract Offshore wind turbines are being installed in deeper water and with more powerful generators resulting in more severe loading conditions on its foundations such as jacket structures. Because the main loading is due to wind and currents, the dominant design limit state is fatigue. The fatigue performance of the tubular joints used in jacket structures has been assessed several decades ago based on test results with limited component dimensions (diameter and wall thickness). In addition, improvements of welding methods and evolution of steel grades are not considered in the current design standards. To provide experimental fatigue-life data on large-scale structures a test program has been carried out on 4 welded tubular X-joints. Each X-joint consists of two horizontal braces with a diameter of 711 mm welded to a central vertical tubular member with 806 mm diameter. The X-joint has a total length of 7.5 m and has two identical welds that are fatigue tested. The fatigue tests are carried out on an innovative resonant bending fatigue test rig that allows to load the specimen in in- and out-of-plane direction at a different amplitude to obtain an even stress distribution over the circumference of the welds. The tests are carried out at a speed close to the resonance frequency of the X-joint. During the test, hotspot strains are measured using strain gauges and a limited amount of water pressure is used to detect through-thickness cracks. The tests are carried out in two phases. During the crack initiation phase, the sample is loaded in both the in- and out-of-plane mode. Once cracks are detected, the test is continued in the crack propagation phase with loading in the plane where cracks had been initiated until through-thickness cracking appeared. During this phase the beach marking technique has been used to mark the shape of the fracture surface at different moments during the fatigue tests. The testing program is part of the RFCS project JABACO that aims to reduce offshore wind cost by incrementing prefabrication of the jacket substructure.


2013 ◽  
Vol 569-570 ◽  
pp. 223-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Feng Wan ◽  
Wan Hong ◽  
Zhi Shen Wu ◽  
Tadanobu Sato

Fiber optic sensors become very popular for structural testing and monitoring in civil engineering nowadays, due to its advantage of high resolution and environment durability. In this paper, long-gauge fiber optic bragg grating sensors will be introduced. Structural damage detection stratagem using the micro-strain mode will be studied. Then its application to a structural testing and monitoring for a real long span truss bridge will be discussed in detail. In the testing, 23 long-gauge fiber optic bragg grating sensors were deployed on the mid span of the bridge. Testing were made under conditions either there is train on the bridge or no train on it. Corresponding dynamic characteristics were analyzed and discussed. Results of the testing show that long-gauge fiber optic sensors can work well for structural testing and also damage detection for truss bridges.


Author(s):  
Alfredo Guemes ◽  
Antonio Fernandez- Lopez ◽  
Patricia F. Diaz-Maroto ◽  
Angel Lozano ◽  
Julián Sierra-Pérez

Fiber optic sensors cannot measure damage; for getting information about damage from strain measurements, additional strategies are needed, and several alternatives have been proposed. This paper discuss two independent concepts: the first one is based on detecting the new strains appearing around a damage spot; the structure does not need to be under loads; the technique is very robust, damage detectability is high, but it requires sensors to be located very close to the damage, so it is a local technique. The second approach offers a wider coverage of the structure, it is based on identifying the changes caused by the damage on the strains field in the whole structure for similar external loads. Damage location does not need to be known a priori, detectability is dependent upon the sensors network density, damage size and the external loads. Examples of application to real structures are given.


Author(s):  
Monica Ciminello ◽  
Bernardino Galasso ◽  
Gianvito Apuleo ◽  
Shay Shoam ◽  
Antonio Concilio

The most part of defects in composite structures carrying attached subelements is the disbond at the interface, as the skin/stringer sections. This is sometimes due to a nonoptimal manufacturing process or sometimes due to accidental object impacts during service. It has been verified that structural discontinuities within an elastic medium under mechanical loads can cause analogous discontinuities within the strain field. Starting from this analysis, the present work investigates the effect of artificially induced kissing bond areas just at the in the skin–stiffener interface of an aeronautical complex composite beam. This research uses longitudinal strain values, acquired at the locations where distributed fiber optic sensors are installed. The applied methodology uses different strain-based features providing local high edge observation both in time and spatial domains. Their autocorrelations are, in the end, computed to improve signal-to-noise ratio. The local high edge observation algorithm is proposed that proves its capability to monitor disbond being at the same time load and baseline independent.


2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 851-856
Author(s):  
JAE-DO KWON ◽  
DAE-KYU PARK ◽  
SEUNG-WAN WOO ◽  
YOUNG-SUCK CHAI

Studies on the strength and fatigue life of machines and structures have been conducted in accordance with the development of modern industries. In particular, fine and repetitive cyclic damage occurring in contact regions has been known to have an impact on fretting fatigue fractures. The main component of zircaloy alloy is Zr , and it possesses good mechanical characteristics at high temperatures. This alloy is used in the fuel rod material of nuclear power plants because of its excellent resistance. In this paper, the effect of the fretting damage on the fatigue behavior of the zircaloy alloy is studied. Further, various types of mechanical tests such as tension and plain fatigue tests are performed. Fretting fatigue tests are performed with a flat-flat contact configuration using a bridge-type contact pad and plate-type specimen. Through these experiments, it is found that the fretting fatigue strength decreases by about 80% as compared to the plain fatigue strength. Oblique cracks are observed in the initial stage of the fretting fatigue, in which damaged areas are found. These results can be used as the basic data for the structural integrity evaluation of corrosion-resisting alloys considering the fretting damages.


Author(s):  
Yuanchuan Liu ◽  
Qing Xiao ◽  
Atilla Incecik

Aero-elasticity is an important issue for modern large scale offshore wind turbines with long slender blades. The behaviour of deformable turbine blades influences the structure stress and thus the sustainability of blades under large unsteady wind loads. In this paper, we present a fully coupled CFD/MultiBody Dynamics analysis tool to examine this problem. The fluid flow around the turbine is solved using a high-fidelity CFD method while the structural dynamics of flexible blades is predicted using an open source code MBDyn, in which the flexible blades are modelled via a series of beam elements. Firstly, a flexible cantilever beam is simulated to verify the developed tool. The NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine is then studied with both rigid and flexible blades to analyse the aero-elastic influence on the wind turbine structural response and aerodynamic performance. Comparison is also made against the publicly available data.


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