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Optimal Redundancy and Maintenance Strategy Decisions for Offshore Wind Power Converters

Shafiee, Mahmood, Patriksson, Michael, Strömberg, Ann-Brith, Bertling Tjernberg, Lina (2015) Optimal Redundancy and Maintenance Strategy Decisions for Offshore Wind Power Converters. International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering, 22 (3). Article Number 1550015. ISSN 0218-5393. E-ISSN 1793-6446. (doi:10.1142/S0218539315500151) (Access to this publication is currently restricted. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:79797)

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Abstract

Analysis of field failure data collected from various wind farm databases indicates that the power converters are among the most critical components in offshore wind turbines, since they suffer from a high failure rate. One efficient approach to enhance the reliability and availability of the wind power systems is through using a redundant converter design, in which a set of power converters is placed together in parallel. The main advantage of a multiple parallel converter system is that the failure of one converter will not necessarily lead to the failure of the entire system. It may however increase the wind turbine's acquisition cost, volume, and weight. In this paper, we propose an approach of joint redundancy and maintenance strategy optimization for offshore wind power converters, aiming to simultaneously determine the "optimal allocation of redundant converters" and the "optimal threshold number of converters that are allowed to fail before sending a maintenance crew to the offshore platform". The optimal solution under various system-level constraints (such as reliability, weight, and the available space in nacelle) is derived and the conditions required to make using a redundant system beneficial are discussed. The proposed design is applied to an offshore wind turbine system and its performance is evaluated using a Monte-Carlo simulation technique. Finally, the results are compared with the conventional power converter system and a sensitivity analysis is conducted in order to make the proposed approach applicable for the next generation of wind turbines.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1142/S0218539315500151
Uncontrolled keywords: Offshore wind turbine; power converter; Redundancy optimization; Reliability; Maintenance; Monte-Carlo simulation
Subjects: T Technology > TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering > TK7800 Electronics
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences > School of Engineering and Digital Arts
Depositing User: Mahmood Shafiee
Date Deposited: 27 Jan 2020 11:02 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 11:02 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/79797 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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