The power of Fibre Optics

The Insensys Strain Sensing System is perfectly optimised for use in harsh environments-
+ Minimal maintenance - System has no moving parts
+ Fit and forget - Designed to last the lifetime of a turbine (25 years)
+ Immune to electrical (EMI) interference - No electronics in the blade, just fibre optics
+ Lightning safe
+ Durable - Immune to fatigue
+ Low impact - Fast, simple sensor integration into your blade production process

Wind Applications - IPC

A blade load measurement system that allows turbine
loads to be reduced

Independent Pitch Control (IPC) takes readings from the Insensys Blade Sensing System to understand the loads on each blade. It does this at high enough frequency to adjust the blade pitch to reduce peak loads within each blade rotation.

It has been demonstrated that IPC using the Insensys blade sensing system can significantly reduce loads on the rotor and key structural components, providing reductions of 10-20% in the blades, 20-30% in the main shaft and considerably reducing tower and yaw bearing loads.

Other benefits of IPC reducing peak loads include-

+ Rotor diameters can increase for higher energy yield
+ Existing turbines can improve their wind class
+ Improves reliability and MTBF
+Reduce output power fluctuations
+Improve power stability of the grid

Don't just trust us

These are independently written research papers on IPC

Validation of Individual Pitch Control by Field Tests on Two- and Three-Bladed Wind Turbines (2013) 

Upwind- design limits and solutions for very large wind turbines (2011) (page 14)

A review of individual pitch control for wind turbines (2016) 

Work with blade sensing experts

Insensys has been installing this technology in wind turbines for more than 12 years. We have sold thousands of systems to the industry's leading manufacturers who are all seeing the benefits of IPC powered by Insensys sensors.