Proud to be Green - Wind Turbine Systems Research at UC Davis

UC Davis graduate students Yingjun "Irene" Zhao (Ph.D. student in Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Frederick Meyers (M.S. student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) are working on a National Science Foundation (NSF) project titled, "Integrated Wind Turbine Blade and Tower Health Monitoring and Failure Prognosis."

In the initial phase of this study, they would like to achieve a better understanding of these wind turbine systems and to demonstrate that sensors can be connected to wireless sensor nodes and operate while the turbine is operating (i.e., the blades are spinning).

The pictures show Zhao and Meyers mounting sensors onto a small-scale wind turbine located on the roof of Bainer Hall. The sensors, in this case accelerometers, were mounted on the blade and tower. The wireless nodes were commanded (remotely) to acquire data from the accelerometers while the blades were spinning, operating, and generating energy. The vibration data will be used to analyze the dynamic characteristics of the blade, as well as for assessing whether or not such a wireless data acquisition strategy will work for larger-scale and real-world wind turbine systems.

Assistant Professor Kenneth Loh, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is the advisor/major professor and project principal investigator. Dr. Loh is the Director of the Nano-Engineering and Smart Structures Technologies (NESST) Laboratory. The trio is also collaborating with Professor Valeria La Saponara from UC Davis and Professor Andrew Swartz from Michigan Technological University. The turbine is owned and operated by Professor Case van Dam and Rob Kamisky from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

This is just another example of what makes UC Davis America's 'Coolest School'.