Abstract
Wind turbine reliability is an important issue for wind energy cost minimization, especially by reduction of operation and maintenance costs for critical components and by increasing wind turbine availability. To develop an optimal operation and maintenance plan for critical components, it is necessary to understand the physics of their failure and be able to develop reliability prediction models. Such a model is proposed in this paper for an IGBT power electronic module. IGBTs are critical components in wind turbine converter systems. These are multilayered devices where layers are soldered to each other and they operate at a thermal-power cycling environment. Temperature loadings affect the reliability of soldered joints by developing cracks and fatigue processes that eventually result in failure. Based on Miner’s rule a linear damage model that incorporates a crack development and propagation processes is discussed. A statistical analysis is performed for appropriate model parameter selection. Based on the proposed model, a layout for component life prediction with crack movement is described in details.
Highlights
Wind turbines (WT), especially offshore wind turbines, are employed under severe weather conditions
The expected lifetime for WTs is usually 20–25 years and the reliability requirements for WTs are about 20–25 years of useful life, taking into account consequences of failure, and difficulties related to accessibility and maintainability
Failures of e.g., converters are often due to failures of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) and better understanding of these failures and improving the reliability of IGBTs are important
Summary
Wind turbines (WT), especially offshore wind turbines, are employed under severe weather conditions. For offshore wind turbines even small failures in electrical components can have significant consequences, related to repair difficulties and accessibility complications due to the weather conditions. High availability and energy production is dependent on high reliability Another aspect is that maintenance and repair costs for offshore WTs can be a significant part (up to 30%) of the COE, and they are highly dependent on the reliability of the WT components, see [4]. One of the critical components in many WT electrical systems is a Power Semiconductor Device (PSD) These devices are part of power electronic converter systems and are used in almost all WTs with power ratings of 1.5 MW and more, both onshore and offshore. Based on the proposed crack propagation model we describe how to find the damage level for a given temperature loading profile
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