Reliability of Wind Turbine components — Solder elements fatigue failure

The physics of failure for electrical components due to temperature loading is described. The main focus is on crack propagation in solder joints and damage accumulation models based on the Miner's rule. Two models are proposed that describe the initial accumulated plastic strain depending on the temperature mean and temperature range. Constant terms and model errors are estimated. The proposed methods are useful to predict damage values for solder joint in power electrical components. Based on the proposed methods it is described how to find the damage level for a given temperature loading profile. The proposed methods are discussed for application in reliability assessment of Wind Turbine's electrical components considering physical, model and measurement uncertainties. For further research it is proposed to evaluate damage criteria for electrical components due to the operational temperature fluctuations within Wind Turbines.