Slice-Oriented Signal Probability Distribution Measure for Wind Turbine Generator Bearing Condition Monitoring Under Variable Speed Conditions

Operating condition monitoring of wind turbine (WT) key components is of significant importance to preventative maintenance and the improvement of WT reliability. To realize this industrial target, health indicator (HI) construction is a crucial and indispensable step. While most of the recently reported HIs are emphasized effective in stationary cases, they are insufficiently applicable to variable speed conditions. To address this issue, a novel HI through operating speed slicing and discrepancy compensation is proposed in this article for WT generator bearing condition monitoring. First, signal probability distributions of the collected degradation data are appropriately characterized by an optimized multiparameter regression method. Then, benchmark distributions established at the normal state are identified through operating speed slicing, and the discrepancies induced by the time-varying operating condition are subsequently calibrated with a compensation strategy. On this basis, a globally comparable metric, by quantitatively evaluating the degree to which the currently established distribution deviates from the corresponding slice-related benchmark, is accordingly constructed. Experimental tests demonstrate that the proposed HI can make a more effective health state assessment for WT generator bearing under variable speed conditions when compared with the conventional indicators.