Failure Analysis and Optimization of Maintenance for the Main Shaft of 1500kw Wind Turbine

Abstract

Maintenance actions do not always return the system to “as good as new” condition. Modelling System Failures (MSF) is a unique quantitative maintenance Optimization technique which permits the evaluation of life-data samples and enables the design and simulation of the system’s model to determine optimum maintenance activities. In this paper, the approach of MSF is used to assess the failure characteristics of a horizontal axis wind turbine. By collecting the field failure data the shape (β) and scale (η) parameters are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation in Weibull distribution for the main shaft of the wind turbine. Weibull probability plots, reliability graphs, failure versus time plots, and probability density function graphs for the main shaft are presented.