The present study focuses on the damage detection problem applied for the case of a blade of a small wind turbine (Sonkyo Energy Windspot 3.5 kW). To this end, the blade is dynamically tested under a number of structural states, including both its nominal (healthy) condition and various damaged states. The collected vibration responses are then used for the estimation of appropriate nonparametric and parametric models of the structure, and the extraction of a characteristic statistical quantity. Damage detection is the performed by the means of simple hypothesis testing. Comparisons with standard vibration-based feature methods, such as ones relying on changes of modal properties, provide significant indications of superior performance. Overall, the results show excellent performance especially for the parametric based method.
doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/351