Condition based maintenance of wind turbine systems considering different turbine types

Abstract

The condition monitoring measurements that can be obtained from wind turbine components include vibration data, acoustic emission data, oil analysis data, power voltage and current data, etc. The objective of condition based maintenance (CBM) is to optimize the maintenance activities based on the prognostics information to minimize the overall costs of wind power generation systems. In this paper, we develop a CBM approach for wind turbine systems considering the economic dependency of different wind turbine types. The proposed CBM policy is defined by failure probability threshold values at the wind turbine level. For each turbine type, two threshold values are defined. After failure probability values at the component level over the lead times, and at the turbine level, are calculated, decisions can be made on whether a maintenance team should be sent to the wind farm, which turbines should be maintained and which components should be maintained. Models are also developed to evaluate the cost for a certain CBM policy.