Numeric optimal sensor configuration solutions for wind turbine gearbox based on structure analysis

The wind turbine gearbox, an important component of wind turbines, has a high failure rate and maintenance cost; therefore, several vibration sensors are installed to execute effective condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, and prediction, for reducing the downtime caused by faults. The sensor positions should directly and accurately reflect the gearbox operating status and provide several signals to the condition monitoring system. This article studies a gearbox model and the gear tooth faults, and builds a gearbox gear vibration model involving these faults. Using structure analysis, sensor configuration solutions rendering all the tooth faults detectable and all the faults isolable are, respectively, obtained, based on the gear vibration model. The sensor configuration solutions of the wind turbine gearbox can guide wind turbine gearbox sensor installation in practice and support common wind turbine gearbox sensor configuration solutions in theory.