Framework of Designing an Adaptive and Multi-Regime Prognostics and Health Management for Wind Turbine Reliability and Efficiency Improvement

Wind turbine systems are increasing in technical complexity, and tasked with operating and degrading in highly dynamic and unpredictable conditions. Sustaining the reliability of such systems is a complex and difficult task. In spite of extensive efforts, current prognostics and health management (PHM) methodologies face many challenges, due to the complexity of the degradation process and the dynamic operating conditions of a wind turbine. This research proposed a novel adaptive and multi-regime prognostics and health management (PHM) approach with the aim to tackle the challenges of traditional methods. With this approach, a scientific and systematic solution is provided for health assessment, diagnosis and prognosis of critical components of wind turbines under varying environmental, operational and aging processes. The system is also capable of adaptively selecting the tools suitable for a component under a certain health status and a specific operating condition. The adopted relevant health assessment, diagnosis and prognosis tools and techniques for wind turbines are warranted by the intensive research of PHM models by the IMS center for common rotary machinery components. Some sub-procedures, such as information reconstruction, regime clustering approach and the prognostics of rotating elements, were validated by the best score performance in PHM Data Challenge 2008 (student group) and 2009 (professional group). The success of the proposed wind turbine PHM system would greatly benefit current wind turbine industry.