Remote monitoring system for an onshore steel wind turbine

The paper presents a monitoring system applied to an existing steel tubular wind tower located in Italy, having almost 45 meters of total height. The monitoring system was comprised by strain‐gauges and thermal couples, mounted on the tower shell at 21 meters of height, and few accelerometers, located along the tower's height. The monitor system was used for two main reasons: i) to understand the nature of the resonance problem experienced by the tower and ii) to evaluate the effective stresses distribution on the shell with different rotor velocities. Finally, a debate about the extension of the life of the wind tower is proposed.