A method is for operating a wind turbine. The wind turbine includes a nacelle including a nacelle component, in particular a rotor bearing, and a nacelle air flow influencing unit. The nacelle air flow influencing unit is configured to influence an air flow entering, flowing through and/or exiting the nacelle. The method includes: determining an operating condition of the nacelle component, determining a cooling demand of the nacelle component dependent on the determined operating condition of the nacelle component, controlling an operation of the nacelle air flow influencing unit dependent on the cooling demand of the nacelle component to adapt the air flow to the cooling demand of the nacelle component.

A state monitoring apparatus for a mechanical apparatus including a rolling bearing includes: a first acquisition portion configured to acquire vibration information or sound information of the rolling bearing during rotation; a second acquisition portion configured to acquire a rotation speed of the rolling bearing during rotation; a derivation portion configured to derive, according to the rotation speed, a timing at which data is sampled from the vibration information or the sound information such that the number of times of sampling per rotation of the rolling bearing is a predetermined value; and a generation portion configured to generate, based on the timing derived by the derivation portion, monitoring data by sampling data from the vibration information or the sound information.

The disclosure relates to condition monitoring of wind turbine pitch bearings by measuring variations in distance between inner and outer rings of a pitch bearing during an angular rotation. Example embodiments include a method of monitoring a condition of a pitch bearing (100) of a wind turbine, the pitch bearing comprising a first ring (102) attached to a blade of the wind turbine and a second ring (103) attached to a hub of the wind turbine, the method comprising: mounting a displacement sensor (105) to the pitch bearing (100) to measure a distance between the first ring (102) and the second ring (103); rotating the first ring (102) relative to the second ring (103) over an angular range; and recording an angular position (204) of the first ring (102) relative to the second ring (103) and a distance (205a, 205b) measured by the displacement sensor (105) while rotating the first ring (103) relative to the second ring (103) over the angular range.

A method for monitoring damage of a slewing ring bearing of a wind turbine includes arranging at least one optical fiber sensor adjacent to or at least partially on at least one of an inner race or an outer race of the slewing ring bearing. Further, the method includes receiving, via a controller, signals from the at least one optical fiber sensor indicative of one or more changes associated with the slewing ring bearing. The method also includes comparing, via the controller, the one or more changes associated with the slewing ring bearing to a damage threshold. Moreover, the method includes implementing, via the controller, a control action when the one or more changes exceeds the damage threshold to prevent or minimize further damage from occurring to the slewing ring bearing.

A device (7) for determining updated statistical life value of a bearing (5) in a machine (1). The device includes a rating life model (MODEL) of the bearing (5), a first determining means (8), and a second determining means (9). The first determining means (8) determines momentary life rating values from values of at least one parameter representative of the condition of use of the bearing in the machine and the rating life model (MODEL). The second determining means (9) determines the updated statistical life value from the momentary life rating values.

A service life evaluation method and device for a pitch bearing of a wind turbine are provided. The method includes: acquiring a probability density of a pitch driving torque in M historical periods, wherein M is a positive integer; acquiring an angle cumulative value of a pitch angle in each of the M historical periods; determining an equivalent load of the pitch bearing based on the pitch driving torque, the probability density of the pitch driving torque in the M historical periods, and angle cumulative values in the M historical periods; and determining a consumed service life of the pitch bearing based on the equivalent load of the pitch bearing

A method is for operating a wind turbine. The wind turbine includes a nacelle including a nacelle component, in particular a rotor bearing, and a nacelle air flow influencing unit. The nacelle air flow influencing unit is configured to influence an air flow entering, flowing through and/or exiting the nacelle. The method includes: determining an operating condition of the nacelle component, determining a cooling demand of the nacelle component dependent on the determined operating condition of the nacelle component, controlling an operation of the nacelle air flow influencing unit dependent on the cooling demand of the nacelle component to adapt the air flow to the cooling demand of the nacelle component.

A method and device for monitoring operation of a wind power bearing holder. The method includes: performing multi-cluster head assisted tracking at multi-point locations on an operation state of the wind power bearing holder via a plurality of sensing chips preinstalled in the wind power bearing holder to obtain point location tracking information; perform point location-related motion vector correction and prediction on orthogonally covered point location tracking information to obtain a circumferential motion trajectory of the point locations; performing irregular trajectory filtering processing on a current circumferential motion trajectory to obtain an ideal circumferential motion trajectory; and comparing locations of probability centroids between an ideal circumferential spatial region and a predicted circumferential spatial region, to obtain operation monitoring information of the wind power bearing.

A process for determining the reliability of a sensorized bearing configured to measure load and speed is provided. The process includes the following steps. Bearing load and rotational speed are determined from data acquired from the sensorized bearing. Next, an array linking the determined load to the determined n.Math.dm value is filled until that all available loads are parsed. Then a L10 life is determined for each load within a distribution based on the array. Finally, an overall L10 life is determined based on the Palmgren-Miner rule. The load distribution and the L10 lives a bearing reliability R for a given date is determined based on a Weibull curve and the overall L10 life. The process may be carried out by a computer having a processor and a memory.

A method for monitoring damage of a slewing ring bearing of a wind turbine includes arranging at least one optical fiber sensor adjacent to or at least partially on at least one of an inner race or an outer race of the slewing ring bearing. Further, the method includes receiving, via a controller, signals from the at least one optical fiber sensor indicative of one or more changes associated with the slewing ring bearing. The method also includes comparing, via the controller, the one or more changes associated with the slewing ring bearing to a damage threshold. Moreover, the method includes implementing, via the controller, a control action when the one or more changes exceeds the damage threshold to prevent or minimize further damage from occurring to the slewing ring bearing.