Applying thermophysics for wind turbine drivetrain fault diagnosis using SCADA data

Abstract

Cost-effective wind turbine diagnosis using SCADA data is a promising technology for future intelligent wind farm operation and management. This paper presents a thermophysics based method for wind turbine drivetrain fault diagnosis. A synthesized thermal model is formed by incorporating thermal mechanisms of the drivetrain into a wind turbine system model. Applications of the model are demonstrated in case studies of the gearbox and generator comparing simulation results and SCADA data analysis. The results show nonlinearity of the gearbox oil temperature rise with wind speed/output power that can effectively indicate gearbox efficiency degradation, which may be attributed to gear transmission problems such as gear teeth wear. Electrical generator faults, such as ventilation failure and winding voltage unbalance will cause changes to heat transfer and result in temperature changes that can be used for diagnosis purposes. This is shown by different patterns of stator winding temperature associated with power generation, while the simulation reveals the thermal mechanism. The method can be applied to diagnose some failure modes which are hard to identify from vibration analysis. The developed thermal model can play a central role for the purpose of fault diagnosis, by deriving relationships between various SCADA signals and revealing changes in the thermophysics of wind turbine operation

Fault Prediction and Diagnosis of Wind Turbine Generators Using SCADA Data

“…Two comprehensive reviews of existing approaches for fault diagnosis are provided by Lu et al [2] and Márquez et al [5]. These methods focused on detecting gearbox faults [7][8][9], blades/pitch faults [10,11], drive train faults [9,10], and main bearings faults [12][13][14].…”

“…The temperature change was used to indicate a generator ventilation system failure [9]. A hybrid model was developed to detect generator cooling system fault in [16].…”

“…wind speed (1) miscorrelation of wind speed and generator active power indicates a fault in wind turbines [21]; (2) miscorrelation between generator speed and generator active power indicates a fault in generator [10]; (3) miscorrelation between generator speed and generator reactive power suggests an electrical fault in the generator [10]; (4) anomalous temperature changes caused by heat transfer can be helpful for figuring out the trajectory of a generator fault [9]; (5) shaft torque calculated in Equation 1 reflects the generator's load [2], and it can be used as an indicator for a generator fault.…”

Study of Wind Turbine Fault Diagnosis Based on Unscented Kalman Filter and SCADA Data

“…It is realized by constructing a cascaded unscented Kalman filter (UKF) model by operational principle analysis. Previous researches of WT gearbox degradation and generator faults clarify the failure mechanisms [16,17] and offer a reference for WT quantitative model development. In addition, considering the nonlinear characteristics of a WT system cascaded UKF is adopted [18,19].…”

“…The simulation is performed according to a WT with 1.5-2 MW, which is configured with a gearbox and doubly fed induction generator. Its simulation model is constructed according to WT's steady state rotor aerodynamics, simplified drive train aerodynamics and control principles as discussed in [16,17]. The time domain simulation result is obtained according to wind speed variation as input to the model.…”