Current State of Wind Turbine's Health Monitoring

Harvesting energy on a global, sustainable, and economic scale is one of the major challenges of this century. However, long-term economic sustainability of wind energy is still to be achieved. Wind turbines are heavy, complex machines with large flexible structures working under turbulent, unpredictable environmental conditions. Their efficiency, cost effectiveness, reliability and availability are also highly dependent on their structural health. This paper provides an overview of existing health monitoring approaches. Their merits and drawbacks are discussed. Future research directions are also examined.