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Markov modeling and reliability allocation in wind turbine for availability enhancement

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Abstract

Necessity has compelled man to improve upon the art of tapping wind energy for power generation: an apt reliever of strain exerted on the non-renewable fossil fuel. Even though wind power is the most accomplished green energy source, reliability and availability are still the primary issues for its successful generation. The components of the wind energy system (WES) have different characteristics which influence the system’s reliability at different levels. Accurate modeling of WES is very essential to study about the possible failure probability which reflects in the availability and economics of operation. This paper aims to present a suitable Markov model for a WES to incorporate the characteristics of condition monitoring (CM). In this work, the accuracy of the developed model is improved by considering failure and repair rates of all the components. A sensitivity analysis is performed using the developed model to learn the characteristics of turbine components that are likely to have an impact on the system’s reliability the most. Results reveal that the components with high failure rates and high mean down times are more critical to reliability. The paper also presents reliability allocation technique as a novel method to improve the availability of WES.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering, CUSAT, Cochin, India

    A. K. Rajeevan & Usha Nair

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Model Engineering College, Cochin, India

    P. V. Shouri

Authors
  1. A. K. Rajeevan
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  2. P. V. Shouri
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  3. Usha Nair
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Correspondence to A. K. Rajeevan.

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Rajeevan, A.K., Shouri, P.V. & Nair, U. Markov modeling and reliability allocation in wind turbine for availability enhancement. Life Cycle Reliab Saf Eng 7, 147–157 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41872-018-0054-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41872-018-0054-8

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