Draw wire sensors for wind turbine blade testing 01 November 2009

Draw-wire displacement sensors are being used to test wind turbine blades at the Fraunhofer Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Its test rig simulates wind on rotor blades up to 70m long, which can cause distortions exceeding 3m at the tip, and this sensor type was selected for its reliability.

Chris Jones, managing director of sensor-maker Micro-Epsilon explains that the rotor blade is mounted horizontally in the test rig, and steel cables attached along its length, via guide pulleys and mechanical clamps.

The draw-wire sensors (from Micro-Epsilon's WireSensor range), which are attached two per cable and mounted to the floor rails, then give precise measurement of distortion over the 3—10m range.

Interestingly these devices come with an application dependent choice of multi-turn potentiometer, incremental encoder or absolute encoder sensing – all with analogue and digital fieldbus outputs.

Brian Tinham

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