Remote monitoring of bi-axial loads on a lifting surface moving unsteadily in water

A system of measuring the bi-axial load on a lifting surface (blade) which is freely moving and operates submerged in water at the laboratory scale is described. A blade with a span of 500 mm, a chord of 60 mm and a thickness of 9 mm (15% of the chord) was employed and the lift/drag forces were measured using a bespoke strain-gauge based load cell located at the mid-span of the blade, measuring bending moments in two independent directions. The requirement to move freely dictated that the load cell was encapsulated within the blade, along with signal conditioning circuitry, power supply and a data logger with wireless transmission. Submerged operation in water resulted in very short transmission distances, meaning that data were recorded and subsequently transferred using an aerial placed close to the blade while it was stationary. Assumptions based on Euler–Bernoulli beam bending theory were used to infer the total load from measurements of the bending moment at the mid-span and example data from a freely moving aerofoil on a Darrieus-type tidal energy extraction device are presented. The novelty of this system lies in its combination of free movement, submerged operation and small scale.