Condition Based Maintenance optimization of wind turbine system using degradation prediction

This paper proposes an optimal Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) policy for a multi-component system. Especially, multicomponent wind turbine has been analyzed to investigate cost relationship between maintenance and energy production schedule. Wind turbine consists of numerous mechanical and electrical components, and each of which shows independent stochastic deterioration process. The fundamental of proposed strategy is derived based on the statistically modeled aging and deterioration of each critical component in the wind turbine system to optimally schedule CBM task. Scheduling the CBM task is variably and iteratively performed through optimizing joint failure probability threshold and inspection/maintenance interval to minimize the total designed cost function. The proposed designed cost function is especially defined to dynamically reflect the various operation, maintenance, and production conditions of wind turbine systems. In addition, this paper proposes life time enhancement factor to investigate the performance of CBM task in terms of achieved designed cost. The proposed CBM policy is theoretically analyzed and justified through a case study using wind farm operation and maintenance cost data.