Development of trouble diagnosis technology of 50‐W‐grade micro wind turbine generator

The establishment of an early trouble diagnosis system is needed in order to prevent damage to wind turbine generators. Therefore, acoustic emission (AE) signals resulting from damage to a wind blade were detected with an AE sensor installed on the body of the wind turbine generator and on the mounting pole. In this study, the length of a blade of a micro wind turbine generator was varied to simulate trouble at constant wind velocity. The AE signals which occurred at this time were measured with an AE sensor. The signal was processed by FFT analysis, and the change of spectral strength was examined. A trouble diagnosis technology for 50‐W‐grade micro wind turbines generator was then developed. A method of counting the number of occurrences of above‐threshold AE signals was suggested by the wave pattern of the AE signals. It was found that the number of occurrences could be used as a standard to judge the normality or abnormality of 50‐W‐grade micro wind turbine generators. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 174(1): 33–39, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21017