Development of a low-cost bi-axial intensity-based optical fibre accelerometer for wind turbine blades

Abstract

A bi-axial optical fibre accelerometer was developed for wind turbine monitoring. The sensor was fabricated from intensity-modulated optical fibre, which is low-cost, lightweight and simple in design. The bi-axial acceleration was measured by light intensity coupling between a cantilever fibre and two receiving fibres. Numerical simulation was performed to obtain the light coupling characteristics and the results were used to design the sensor parameters. A prototype was fabricated and the calibration scheme validated experimentally. The performance of the prototype was tested in terms of frequency response and linearity. © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.