Patent ID: 9652839
Date: 2017-05-16
CPC Classifications: F03D,F05B,G01N,G06K,G06T,H04N,Y02E

Claim:
1. A method of remotely inspecting blades of a wind turbine in situ, the method comprising: positioning a thermal imaging camera on a ground surface on at least one side of a tower of the wind turbine at a location approximately mid-span of the blades; capturing at least one image of at least a portion of each wind turbine blade with the thermal imaging camera as each blade passes through a field of view of the thermal imaging camera while the wind turbine is rotating and undergoing cyclic load due to gravity and variations in wind loads and when the blade has substantially reached thermal equilibrium with ambient air after sunset in order to produce thermal imaging data; and analyzing the thermal imaging data to identify atypical thermal patterns due to thermoelastic heating and/or frictional heating within or around defects within the blades.