Vibration-based condition monitoring of wind turbine blades

Significant advances in wind turbine technology have increased the need for maintenance through condition monitoring. Indeed condition monitoring techniques exist and are deployed on wind turbines across Europe and America but are limited in scope. The sensors and monitoring devices used can be very expensive to deploy, further increasing costs within the wind industry. The work outlined in this thesis primarily investigates potential low-cost alternatives in the laboratory environment using vibration-based and modal testing techniques that could be used to monitor the condition of wind turbine blades. The main contributions of this thesis are: (1) the review of vibration-based condition monitoring for changing natural frequency identification; (2) the application of low-cost piezoelectric sounders with proof mass for sensing and measuring vibrations which provide information on structural health; (3) the application of low-cost miniature Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) accelerometers for detecting and measuring defects in micro wind turbine blades in laboratory experiments; (4) development of an in-service calibration technique for arbitrarily positioned MEMS accelerometers on a medium-sized wind turbine blade. This allowed for easier aligning of coordinate systems and setting the accelerometer calibration values using samples taken over a period of time; (5) laboratory validation of low-cost modal analysis techniques on a medium-sized wind turbine blade; (6) mimicked ice-loading and laboratory measurement of vibration characteristics using MEMS accelerometers on a real wind turbine blade and (7) conceptualisation and systems design of a novel embedded monitoring system that can be installed at manufacture, is self-powered, has signal processing capability and can operate remotely. By applying the conclusions of this work, which demonstrates that low-cost consumer electronics specifically MEMS accelerometers can measure the vibration characteristics of wind turbine blades, the implementation and deployment of these devices can contribute towards reducing the rising costs of condition monitoring within the wind industry

The evaluation of renal allo and autotransplantation results in cats

WOS: 000180152200023For the first time in Turkey, renal autotransplantation in 7 cats and renal allotransplantation in 7 cats having blood-crossmatch-compatible donors were performed. Immunosuppression was maintained by a prednisolone-cyclosporin combination in the renal allotransplantation group. All cats in the renal allotransplantation group died during the operation or between 3 and 72 h postoperatively. Two cats in the renal autotransplantation group survived approximately 2 years. Hyperacute or acute rejection findings were not encountered according to perioperative observations, laboratory findings or histopathological evaluations of renal allografts. The results of histopathological evaluations of renal allografts indicated acute tubular necrosis (ATN) findings caused by renal hypoperfusion due to hypotension. The reason for ATN was considered to be a result of hypotension that invasive methods could not control

Production and characterization of elastomeric cardiac tissue-like patches for Myocardial Tissue Engineering

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death. Damaged heart muscle is the etiology of heart failure. Heart failure is the most frequent cause of hospital and emergency room admissions. As a differentiated organ, current therapeutics and techniques can not repair or replace the damaged myocardial tissue. Myocardial tissue engineering is one of the promising treatment modalities for repairing damaged heart tissue in patients with heart failure. In this work, random Polylactic acid (PLA), Polylactic acid/Polyethylene glycol (PLA/PEG) and random and aligned Polylactic acid/Polyethylene glycol/Collagen (PLA/PEG/COL) nanofiber patches were successfully produced by the electrospinning technique. In vitro cytotoxic test (MTT), morphological (SEM), molecular interactions between the components (FT-IR), thermal analysis (DSC), tensile strength and physical analysis were carried out after production. The resulting nanofiber patches exhibited beadless and smooth structures. When the fiber diameters were examined, it was observed that the collagen doped random nanofiber patches had the lowest fiber diameter value (755 nm). Mechanical characterization results showed that aligned nanofiber patches had maximum tensile strength (5.90 MPa) values compared to PLA, PLA/PEG, and PLA/PEG/COL (random). In vitro degradation test reported that aligned patch had the highest degradation ratio. The produced patches displayed good alignment with tissue on cardiomyocyte cell morphology studies. In conclusion, newly produced patches have noticeable potential as a tissue-like cardiac patch for regeneration efforts after myocardial infarction