Remaining Useful Life Estimation Framework for the Main Bearing of Wind Turbines Operating in Real Time

Januário Leal de Moraes Vieira, Felipe Costa Farias, Alvaro Antonio Villa Ochoa (), Frederico Duarte de Menezes, Alexandre Carlos Araújo da Costa, José Ângelo Peixoto da Costa, Gustavo de Novaes Pires Leite, Olga de Castro Vilela, Marrison Gabriel Guedes de Souza and Paula Suemy Arruda Michima
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Januário Leal de Moraes Vieira: Department of Higher Education Courses (DACS), Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco, Av. Prof Luiz Freire, 500, Recife 50740-545, Brazil
Felipe Costa Farias: Department of Higher Education Courses (DACS), Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco, Av. Prof Luiz Freire, 500, Recife 50740-545, Brazil
Alvaro Antonio Villa Ochoa: Department of Higher Education Courses (DACS), Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco, Av. Prof Luiz Freire, 500, Recife 50740-545, Brazil
Frederico Duarte de Menezes: Department of Higher Education Courses (DACS), Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco, Av. Prof Luiz Freire, 500, Recife 50740-545, Brazil
Alexandre Carlos Araújo da Costa: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Pernambuco, Cidade Universitaria, 1235, Recife 50670-901, Brazil
José Ângelo Peixoto da Costa: Department of Higher Education Courses (DACS), Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco, Av. Prof Luiz Freire, 500, Recife 50740-545, Brazil
Gustavo de Novaes Pires Leite: Department of Higher Education Courses (DACS), Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pernambuco, Av. Prof Luiz Freire, 500, Recife 50740-545, Brazil
Olga de Castro Vilela: Centro de Energias Renováveis (CER), Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Cidade Universitaria, 1235, Recife 50670-901, Brazil
Marrison Gabriel Guedes de Souza: NEOG—New Energy Options Geração de Energia, Guamaré 59598-000, Brazil
Paula Suemy Arruda Michima: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Pernambuco, Cidade Universitaria, 1235, Recife 50670-901, Brazil

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: The prognosis of wind turbine failures in real operating conditions is a significant gap in the academic literature and is essential for achieving viable performance parameters for the operation and maintenance of these machines, especially those located offshore. This paper presents a framework for estimating the remaining useful life (RUL) of the main bearing using regression models fed operational data (temperature, wind speed, and the active power of the network) collected by a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. The framework begins with a careful data filtering process, followed by creating a degradation profile based on identifying the behavior of temperature time series. It also uses a cross-validation strategy to mitigate data scarcity and increase model robustness by combining subsets of data from different available turbines. Support vector, gradient boosting, random forest, and extra trees models were created, which, in the tests, showed an average of 20 days in estimating the remaining useful life and presented mean absolute error (MAE) values of 0.047 and mean squared errors (MSE) of 0.012. As its main contributions, this work proposes (i) a robust and effective regression modeling method for estimating RUL based on temperature and (ii) an approach for dealing with a lack of data, a common problem in wind turbine operation. The results demonstrate the potential of using these forecasts to support the decision making of the teams responsible for operating and maintaining wind farms.

Keywords: wind turbine; main bearing; remaining useful life—RUL; remaining useful life; machine learning; regression models; supervisory control and data acquisition—SCADA; bearing temperature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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