Preliminary Test for 3D Surface Strain Measurement in the Tower and Foundation of Offshore Wind Turbines Using DOFS

Subjected to the relentless impacts of typhoons and rough seas, offshore wind turbines’ structures, particularly the tower, foundation, and blade, are at constant risk of damage. Full-field strain monitoring helps to discover potential structural defects, thereby reducing disasters caused by overall structural failure. This study introduces a novel method for assessing strain and temperature fields on these kinds of 3D surfaces of cylindrical structures. The method harnesses the capabilities of a high spatial resolution (0.65 mm) Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometer (OFDR)-based Distributed Optical Fiber Sensor (DOFS) in conjunction with a unique helical wiring layout. The core process begins with mapping the fiber optic path onto a plane corresponding to the unfolded cylinder. Fiber optic signals are then differentiated on this plane, deriving a two-dimensional strain distribution. The plane strain field is subsequently projected onto the 3D side of the cylinder. An experiment was carried out in which a 3.5 m long optical fiber was helically wound with a 10 mm pitch on the surface of a cantilever beam of a cylinder shell with a diameter of 36 mm and a length of 300 mm. The experiment collected about 5400 measurement points on the cylindrical surface of 340 cm(2), approximately 15.9 measurement points per square centimeter. The reconstructed results successfully reveal the strain field of the pipe cantilever beam under bending and torsional loads, as well as the palm-shaped temperature field. This experimental validation of the method’s efficacy lays the theoretical groundwork for its application to real wind turbines.