Figure 9. The experimental setup of a wind turbine rotor blade under cyclic loading to trigger damage growth in the structure [25]. The damage is visually inspected, and their images are used in the current study to be mapped on a visual digital twin.
Images of the areas with damages can be regularly mapped to a CAD model of the wind blade and the updated digital twin can be used to accurately estimate the damage progression. In the final version of the tool the image capturing of the damage, mapping of the images onto the model and finally the estimation of the sizes of the defects will be done automatically. Figure 10 (a) depicts a segment of the wind blade in figure 9 after the fatigue experiment.
Using the mapping algorithms presented in section 4 four color images of these delamination areas have been mapped onto the blade CAD model. The red, green blue color information for each of the image pixels are here used in the mapping process. From this digital twin model, the damage growth can be calculated in a virtual environment, allowing regular and efficient assessment of structural integrity of the physical twin by updating the digital twin with new damage inspection images.