Reliability and condition monitoring of a wind turbine

Wind is one of the cheapest and cleanest sources of energy. However, large and frequent fluctuations in wind intensity and directions can cause serious problems in harvesting this energy. Wind turbines are subjected to many unexpected environmental loads, which can be catastrophic in nature for the wind turbine system. Like any other industrial equipment wind turbines also require some type of monitoring system which is able to predict the up coming faults of the most sensitive components of the system to save it from a major disaster. This paper highlights the ongoing research on reliability analysis and condition monitoring system required for a small-scale wind turbine system AOC15/50, which is widely used in Atlantic Canada and USA. The paper describes the importance of safety system and lay ground work for sensor specification, sensor mounting and configuration requirements for magnetic tip brake and yaw bearing which were proved to be the least reliable components in an extensive reliability analysis. The paper describes condition monitoring instrumentation, data acquisition system and data analysis methodology.