Gearbox Fault Detection Nrel Gearbox Test Facility

the winD inDustry has experienceD a rapid expansion. As wind farms are aging, their operations and maintenance issues are gaining in significance. The wind industry has been affected by failures of wind turbine components such as main bearings, gearboxes, and generators. Replacement of failed components results in the high cost in energy production. Therefore, research in fault identification and condition monitoring is warranted. In this study, detecting wind turbine gearbox faults based on vibration acceleration data provided by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been investigated. Data mining methods [1, 2] are applied to identify the faults in the time domain. nrel Gearbox test Facility The data used in this research originate from a damaged gearbox of a test wind turbine. The gearbox was retested at the Dynamometer Test Facility (DTF) at NREL. To retest the gearbox, the complete nacelle, and the drive train of the test wind turbine were installed at the DTF. The nacelle was hard fixed to the floor without hub, rotor, and yaw bearing. Figure 1 shows the diagram of DTF. The gearbox included three stages: low-speed stage (LSST), intermediate-speed stage (ISST), and highspeed stage (HSST). It was instrumented with over 125 sensors. Figure 2 shows the side view of the gearbox. As At the University of Iowa, detecting wind turbine gearbox faults based on vibration acceleration data provided by NREL is augmented by data mining techniques.