Health Monitoring and Diagnosis System for a Small H-Type Darrieus Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine

Abstract

As the wind power market grows rapidly, the importance of technology for real-time monitoring and diagnosis of wind turbines is increasing. However, most of the developed technologies and research mainly focus on large horizontal-axis wind turbines, and research conducted on small- and medium-sized wind turbines is rare. In this study, a novel low-cost and real-time health monitoring and diagnosis system for the small H-type Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine is proposed. Turbine operating conditions were classified into parked/idle and power production. In the case of the power production condition, abnormality diagnosis was performed using key monitoring parameters, including vibration, fundamental frequency, the bending stress of the tower and generator vibration. The turbine abnormalities were diagnosed in two stages by applying the alert and alarm limits, determined by referring to international standards and material properties and the long-term measurement data together.