Research on a simple, cheap but globally effective condition monitoring technique for wind turbines

Vibration measurement and lubrication oil analysis are used in wind turbines (WT) as condition monitoring systems (CMS). However, they do not provide a complete solution to the WT CMS problem. The former measurement is sophisticated with high hardware costs, suffering from spurious alarms; the latter monitors the wear and fatigue of gears and bearings, but cannot detect electrical abnormalities occurring in the WT generator and electrical system. So, a simpler, cheaper but moreover globally comprehensive WT CMS is still needed, especially if the WTs are to go offshore, where they are confronted with higher risks and difficulties of access. To meet this requirement, a new WT condition monitoring technique has been researched in this paper. As the WT operates over a widely varying power range, dependant on the stochastic variations of the wind, the monitoring signals are usually non-stationary. In view of this, a wavelet-based adaptive filter is designed to extract the power energy at prescribed, fault-related frequencies which vary with time. The energy information obtained is then used as an indicator of WT condition. The central frequency of the filter is adaptive to the average rotational speed of the generator, and the filter bandwidth depends upon the fluctuation of wind speed. By using this filter, fault features can be extracted whether the WT runs at fixed or variable speed. The proposed technique has been experimentally validated on a WT Test Rig using both synchronous and induction generators as exemplars. Experiments prove that the proposed technique is efficient in assessing the WT condition for both mechanical and electrical abnormalities.