Damage identification of a wind turbine blade from interferometric radar tests

In recent decades, the diffusion of wind farms on the Italian territory has been increasing. This tendency has encouraged the development of techniques for the damage identifying of wind turbines during the operation phase. In this research, we propose a damage identification approach of the of wind turbines based on the results of radar interferometry tests. In particular, we have carried out Ambient Vibration Testing (AVT) of the wind turbine located in the Apulian region and we have identified the modal properties of the wind turbine and of the single blade by means of the radar interferometric technique using three different radar acquisitions. Starting from the experimental results, we have developed numerical simulation models in case of the damage absence and in case of the presence of different damage scenarios to verify the radar interferometer ability to detect the damage (first level of damage detection [1]) and to locate the damage (second level of damage detection [1]). The obtained results are quite promising and encourage further studies on this topic.