Fault Classification of Wind Turbine Gearbox Bearings Based on Convolutional Neural Networks

Abstract

Gearbox bearings are critical elements of wind power generation systems. Their stable operation supports the power generation, thus reducing the downtime and improving the economic efficiency of wind farms. With the wide availability of sensors, data-driven methods have started to be utilized instead of physical-based methods for condition monitoring of wind energy infrastructures. Deep learning provides significant advantages to achieving this end due to its ability to extract and select representative features without expert knowledge. The present study proposed an intelligent method based on one-dimensional convolutional neural networks (1D-CNN) to extract useful features from the vibration signals and classify different bearing faults. The performance of the proposed 1D-CNN model was evaluated employing the Case Western Reserve University dataset. As a result, the proposed method achieved an average prediction accuracy of 99.56%. The findings confirmed that the method has good stability and potentially be used to reduce operation and maintenance costs.