University of Twente Student Theses
The application of a functional approach for detecting wind turbine failures from SCADA-data
Roeplal, N.S.D. (2019) The application of a functional approach for detecting wind turbine failures from SCADA-data.
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| Abstract: | Unscheduled maintenance interventions on wind turbines (WTs) incurs significant downtime and thus loss of revenue. Therefore, it is important to perform maintenance just before it is needed. Due to the high costs of Condition Monitoring systems (CMs), data recorded by the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system of a WT is increasingly being used for detecting failures. Currently, the company Independent eXperts (IX) analyzes historical SCADA-data with a tool that, among others, presents deviations in SCADA-parameter behaviors. The company faces two main challenges when trying to relate this information for diagnosing turbine damage. Firstly, the relation between the behavior of the parameters and a (sub-)assembly damage is unclear as there is no one-to-one relation between the parameter deviations and (sub-)assembly damage and secondly, it is unclear whether the deviation of a parameter relates to the cause of a damage or its effect. In order to tackle the above-mentioned challenges, IX has proposed to analyze SCADA-data through a functional approach. The goal of this work is to explore whether/to what extent knowledge of the functional relations between the WT (sub-)assemblies supports the detection of To achieve this goal, a generic overview was created of the functional relations that generally exist in a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT). These relations were established based on the physical arrangement of the WT (sub-)assemblies and their functionalities. Hereafter, the fundamental physics governing the energy conversion process were studied in order to support analyzing the SCADA-data. This research showed that the detection of (sub-)assembly failures based on the functional relations is not feasible as the failure effects of a certain (sub-)assembly failure cannot be fully captured based on the functional relations. To overcome this challenge, this work proposed to additionally consider the forces and moments, i.e. the load flow, seen by the WT (sub-)assemblies. Application of the load flow showed that significantly more failure effects were identified. Additionally it was possible to provide a scientifically underpinned explanation of how SCADA-parameters are related and thus which parameters may be plotted against each other in order to detect failures. The latter is often lacking in literature. It was also possible to explain the deviations seen in the parameter behaviors. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Clients: | Independent eXperts BV, Leiden, The Netherlands |
| Faculty: | ET: Engineering Technology |
| Subject: | 33 physics |
| Programme: | Mechanical Engineering MSc (60439) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/79521 |
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