Determining damage and remaining useful life of rotating machinery including drive trains, gearboxes, and generators
A method for predicting remaining useful life of a wind or water turbine or component determines in step ( 116 ) an accumulated damage for the turbine or component and compares this in step ( 118 ) to preset damage limit obtained in step ( 114 ). This provides a simple approach to estimating remaining useful life, giving the turbine operator an indication of the condition of turbines or farms under management.
1. A method for assessing for refurbishing a failed wind or water turbine component comprising the steps of:
predicting the remaining useful life of the component according to the steps of:
obtaining a damage limit value for the rotating machine or component thereof;
determining accumulated damage for the rotating machine or component thereof according to the steps of:
providing data relating to one or more operating conditions;
providing one or more damage coefficients relating to the one or more operating conditions; and
calculating the damage as a function of the one or more operating conditions and the one or more damage coefficients; and
determining the remaining useful life from the damage limit and the accumulated damage;
setting a refurbishment limit;
investigating for actual damage to the component when the residual useful life is greater than the refurbishment limit;
the component being repairable, refurbishing the component.
2. The method according to claim 1 , in which the step of investigating for actual damage is selected from the group consisting of using an endoscope, performing vibration analysis and performing lubrication analysis.
3. A computer readable product comprising code means designed for implementing the steps of the method according to claim 1 .
4. A computer system comprising means designed for implementing the steps of the method according to claim 1 .
5. The method according to claim 1 , in which the step of providing one or more damage coefficients comprises the steps of:
determining damage under rated operating conditions and under the one or more field operating conditions of the same duration; and
calculating the one or more damage coefficients as a function of the damage under rated conditions and the damage under the one or more field operating conditions.
6. The method according to claim 5 in which the step of determining damage includes providing one or more models selected from the group consisting of:
a bearing skidding model;
a dynamic model;
a life model;
a nominal model of the gearbox, drive-train and/or generator;
a model unique to the specific gearbox, drive-train and/or generator including information on one or more manufacturing variations of one or more components of the gearbox, drive-train and/or generator;
a fully coupled finite element model comprising nodes with six degrees of freedom unique to the gearbox, drive-train and/or generator; and
one or more meta-models, wherein the one or more meta-models are specific for each of the one or more components.
7. The method according to claim 6 in which the one or more damage coefficients are a function of a ratio of damage under rated operating conditions and damage under the one or more field operating conditions of the same duration.
8. The method according to claim 1 , in which the step of providing data comprises one or more of the following:
providing data relating to one or more steady state operating conditions;
providing data relating to one or more transient state operating conditions;
providing historical data;
collecting data from one or more sensors monitoring the one or more operating conditions; and
providing data from a condition monitoring system.
9. The method according to claim 1 , in which the step of providing one or more damage coefficients comprises one or more of the following:
providing damage coefficients relating to one or more steady state operating conditions; and
providing damage coefficients relating to one or more transient state operating conditions.