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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">WESD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Wind Energy Science Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">WESD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Wind Energ. Sci. Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2366-7621</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/wes-2026-5</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Virtual sensing for strain estimation in wind turbine support structures based on a single accelerometer</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Thurn</surname>
<given-names>Jonathan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4917-2083</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Jonscher</surname>
<given-names>Clemens</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8456-9231</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hofmeister</surname>
<given-names>Benedikt</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zorzi</surname>
<given-names>Gianluca</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Rolfes</surname>
<given-names>Raimund</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7714-3382</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Leibniz University Hannover / ForWind, Institute of Structural Analysis, Appelstraße 9A, 30167 Hannover,  Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Photonics and Terahertz Technology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, Universitätsstraße 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>RWE Offshore Wind GmbH, Drehbahn 47-49, 20354 Hamburg, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>20</day>
<month>02</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>30</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Jonathan Thurn et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-5/">This article is available from https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-5/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-5/wes-2026-5.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-5/wes-2026-5.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>This paper introduces a novel model-based approach for virtual sensing of wind turbine support structures for full-field strain estimation using a single DC-capable accelerometer. It enables displacement and strain estimation in the quasi-static frequency band, which accounts for a large proportion of accumulated fatigue damage in offshore wind turbine support structures, while saving costs by relying solely on accelerations from a single accelerometer as input. The introduced method extends the modal decomposition and expansion by using displacement estimations based on tilt-error compensated acceleration time series, utilising the tower&apos;s static bending line. It is applied here in two validation case studies: a small-scale laboratory experiment and a full-scale offshore wind turbine. In both cases, the estimated strain is validated against strain measurements conducted at various locations along the structure. The results show excellent agreement between the estimated and measured strains for both case studies. In the laboratory experiment, both displacements and strains are estimated accurately with errors below 2.2 % and 1.2 %, respectively. For the offshore wind turbine, the damage equivalent loads at the tower can be estimated with a maximum error of 21 % in the worst case and 6 % in the best case. The presented approach offers an improvement over established methods for strain estimation, achieving similar accuracy with fewer sensors, resulting in a low-maintenance load monitoring.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="30"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Volkswagen Foundation</funding-source>
<award-id>ZN4468</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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