METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MONITORING THE HEALTH STATE OF BLADE ROOT FASTENER

Abstract

The invention provides a method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener, comprising the following steps: obtaining a sequence of acceleration signals representing the lateral vibration of the nacelle and a sequence of rotational speed signals representing the rotational speed of the rotor; analyzing the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals to determine the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor; and determining the health state of the blade root fastener based on the amplitude. The invention also provides a system for monitoring the health state of the blade root fastener. Through the present invention, the health state of the blade root fastener can be determined with low cost and high precision, thereby improving the operation efficiency and operation safety of the wind turbine.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener, comprising the following steps: obtaining a sequence of acceleration signals representing the lateral vibration of the nacelle and a sequence of rotational speed signals representing the rotational speed of the rotor; analyzing the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals to determine the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor; and determining the health state of the blade root fastener based on the amplitude.

2. The method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 1, further comprising the following steps: filtering the amplitude based on historical amplitude data to remove the influence of abnormal data.

3. The method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 1, wherein analyzing the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals to determine the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor comprises the following steps: transforming the acceleration represented by the sequence of acceleration signals from the time domain signal to the angular domain signal of the rotor azimuth according to the rotational speed of the rotor represented by the sequence of rotational speed signals; and performing a Fast Fourier Transform FFT on the angular domain signal, and extracting the amplitude corresponding to 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor as the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor.

4. The method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 3, further comprising the following steps: eliminating background noise due to limited data length of angular domain signals after FFT; and/or correcting the amplitude corresponding to 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor according to the frequency and/or weight of the tower and the frequency and/or weight of the blade.

5. The method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 1, wherein the blade root fastener comprises one or more of the following: blade root bolt, blade root nut, blade root screw, and blade root adhesion portion.

6. The method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 1, further comprising the following step: sending an alarm signal remotely to user mobile device.

7. The method for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 1, wherein determining the health state of the blade root fastener based on the amplitude comprises the following steps: issuing an alarm signal indicating that maintenance should be performed when the amplitude exceeds a first threshold; and issue an alarm signal indicating that should be shut down when the amplitude exceeds a second threshold.

8. A system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener, comprising: a sensor, which is configured to obtain a sequence of acceleration signals representing the lateral vibration of the nacelle and a sequence of rotational speed signals representing the rotational speed of the rotor; and a controller, which is configured to perform the following actions: analyzing the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals to determine the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor; and determining the health state of the blade root fastener based on the amplitude.

9. The system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 8, wherein the sensor is a PCH acceleration sensor.

10. The system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 8, further comprising: a pitch actuator, which is configured to perform a pitch operation based on the health state of the blade root fastener; and/or a remote communication module, which is configured to remotely transmit the health state of the blade root fastener to a user mobile device.

11. The system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 8, wherein the health state comprises one or more of the following: whether the blade root fastener falls off; whether the blade root fastener is broken; and whether the blade root fastener is loose.

12. A wind turbine, comprising the system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 8.

13. A wind turbine, comprising the system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 9.

14. A wind turbine, comprising the system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 10.

15. A wind turbine, comprising the system for monitoring health state of blade root fastener according to claim 11.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0052] The present invention is further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in conjunction with specific embodiments.

[0053] FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a system according to the invention;

[0054] FIG. 2 shows the flow of the method according to the invention; and

[0055] FIG. 3 shows an example of a monitoring process according to the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

[0056] It should be noted that various components in the various figures may be shown exaggerated for illustration purposes and not necessarily to correct scale. In the various figures, identical or functionally identical components are provided with the same reference numerals.

[0057] In the present invention, unless otherwise specified, “arranged on,” “arranged over,” and “arranged over” do not exclude the case where there is an intermediate between the two. In addition, “arranged on or above” only means the relative positional relationship between two components, and in certain circumstances, such as after reversing the product direction, it can also be converted to “arranged under or below”, and vice versa.

[0058] In the present invention, each embodiment is only intended to illustrate the solution of the present invention, and should not be construed as limiting.

[0059] In the present invention, unless otherwise specified, the quantifiers “a” and “an” do not exclude the scenario of multiple elements.

[0060] It should also be pointed out here that, in the embodiments of the present invention, for the sake of clarity and simplicity, only a part of the components or assemblies may be shown, but those of ordinary skill in the art can understand that, under the teaching of the present invention, required parts or components may be added according to specific scenarios.

[0061] It should also be pointed out that within the scope of the present invention, the terms “same”, “equal” and “equal to” do not mean that the two values are absolutely equal, but allow a certain reasonable error, that is, the phrases also encompass “substantially the same”, “substantially equal”, “substantially equal to”. By analogy, in the present invention, the terms “perpendicular to”, “parallel to” and the like in the table direction also encompass the meanings of “substantially perpendicular to” and “substantially parallel to”.

[0062] In addition, the numbering of the steps of each method of the present invention does not limit the execution order of the method steps. Unless otherwise indicated, the various method steps may be performed in a different order.

[0063] In the present invention, the controller may be implemented in software, hardware or firmware or a combination thereof. A controller can exist alone or be part of a component. For example, the controller may be implemented as a discrete hardware module in the wind turbine or as part of the pitch system; or the controller may be implemented as software, such as a software module of a control system of the pitch system or on a local computer or remote server or user mobile device application App.

[0064] In view of the limitations of the existing blade root fastener monitoring scheme, such as high monitoring complexity, high hardware cost, and low detection accuracy, the present invention provides a novel method and system for monitoring the health state of the blade root fastener, which can determine the health state of the blade root fastener with low cost and high accuracy, thereby increasing the operating efficiency and operating safety of the wind turbine. In particular, the idea on which the present invention is based is that, the inventor found through research that failures such as breaking and loosening of the blade root fastener will cause abnormal changes in blade attitude, such as a reduction in the natural vibration frequency of the blade, which in turn will lead to lateral vibration of the nacelle. Not only that, the inventors have also discovered the specificity of this lateral vibration, specifically, the various lateral vibrations of the nacelle are not all associated with the failure of the blade root fasteners, only the vibration of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor has a strong correlation with the failure of the blade root fastener. That is to say, the frequency of the lateral vibration of the nacelle caused by the failure of the blade root fastener is exactly the same as the 2-time-frequency of the rotational speed of the rotor. Therefore, by detecting the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor, it can be accurately judged whether the failure of the blade root fastener has occurred. In addition, the present invention only needs to detect acceleration and rotational speed, and the calculation solution is simple, so the hardware and software costs of the fastener failure detection solution can be better reduced. For example, the present invention can use the PCH sensor that will be installed in the wind turbine, does not need to install additional hardware sensors, has low cost and good versatility. In addition, the solution of the present invention can be installed in the programmable logic circuit PLC of the wind turbine in the form of a software APP to perform stand-alone off-line operation to realize full-time monitoring. Once a fault warning is triggered, the wind turbine will automatically stop for protection. The invention has strict theoretical support behind it, and has a clear directionality for the fracture of the blade root bolt.

[0065] The present invention is further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in conjunction with specific embodiments.

[0066] FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a system 100 according to the invention.

[0067] First, an exemplary operating environment for the system 100 is set forth. In this embodiment, the system 100 for monitoring the health state of the blade root fastener (or simply “system 100”) determines the health state of the blade root fastener through data measurement or data acquisition and data processing, and sends the health state remotely to the user mobile device 107 through the optional relay device 105 and the optional network 106, and then the user can view the health state remotely, for example, on the monitoring application 108 installed on the user mobile device 107, and performs remote operations such as blade attitude adjustment or shutdown if necessary. The relay device 105 may be, for example, an infrared receiver, a Wi-Fi router, a base station, a communication satellite, etc. The network 106 may be the Internet or an Intranet or other private network. In a preferred embodiment, the system 100 communicates directly with the user mobile device 107 or other control terminal, in this case, the system 100 has a transmitter of corresponding power so that the health state signal can be received by the user mobile device 107 or other control terminal. In a preferred embodiment, a remote server 109 is also provided for authentication of the system 100 and historical data storage. For example, the user must first enter the correct user credentials into the remote server 109 to access the system 100 (for example, by means of a monitoring application 108 installed on the user mobile device 107), thereby obtaining the corresponding health state. The remote server 109 may also store historical health state of the system 100 for statistical or related threshold determination. Additionally, the remote server 109 can also encrypt and decrypt data between the system 100 and the user mobile device 107, thereby increasing security.

[0068] In the present invention, the blade root fastener should be understood broadly. For example, the blade root encompasses various fastening devices for connecting blade roots and bolts, such as blade root bolts, blade root nuts, blade root screws, and blade root adhesion parts, etc. Failures such as breakage and loosening of these blade root fasteners will lead to changes in the blade attitude and even lead to safety accidents of the wind turbine.

[0069] Further details of the system 100 are set forth next.

[0070] As shown in FIG. 1, the system 100 for monitoring the health state of the blade root fastener according to the present invention includes the following components (some of these components are optional): [0071] The sensor 101, which is configured to obtain the sequence of acceleration signals representing the lateral vibration of the nacelle and the sequence of rotational speed signals representing the rotational speed of the rotor. The sensor 101 can be, for example, a PCH acceleration sensor installed in the nacelle, which can be used to measure both acceleration and rotational speed. Other types of sensors 101 are also conceivable under the teachings of the present invention, such as rotational speed sensor and displacement sensor. Herein, the term “acceleration signals representing the lateral vibration of the nacelle” refers to the acceleration on the nacelle measurement, since the acceleration is caused by the vibration of the nacelle in lateral direction. In the present invention, the lateral direction of the nacelle refers to the horizontal direction or the direction transverse to the vertical direction (for example, at an angle of 70° to 90° to the vertical direction). [0072] The controller 102, which is configured to perform the following actions: [0073] Analyzing the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals to determine the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor. This can be achieved, for example, by identifying the magnitude of a particular frequency on the spectrum of the nacelle lateral vibration spectrum. Herein, the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals may, for example, be continuous signals within a certain period of time, and the two may be related in time. For example, the time of the two signals can be recorded in order to associate them with each other, or the two signals can be stored in an array in association with each other. For example, the controller 102 can continuously collect the vibration data and put it into the data sequence. When the collected data reaches a certain period of time, the signal sequence is analyzed to obtain the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor (2P). After completing an analysis, the data queue is emptied, and then the above collection and analysis operations are repeated. In a preferred embodiment, the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor is determined as follows: [0074] Transforming the acceleration represented by the sequence of acceleration signals from the time domain signal to the angular domain signal of the rotor azimuth according to the rotational speed of the rotor represented by the sequence of rotational speed signals. Herein, the above conversion is performed by the relationship between time and the azimuth angle of the rotor. That is to say, at each moment, the rotor has a corresponding azimuth angle, so that the above transformation is completed by data substitution. [0075] Performing a FFT on the angular domain signal, and extract the amplitude corresponding to 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor as the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor. Through the fast Fourier transform (FFT), the angle domain signal can be easily transformed into the frequency domain signal, which is beneficial to identify the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor. The fast Fourier transform is a well-known algorithm, so it will not be described herein. In a preferred embodiment, background noise due to limited data length of the angular domain signal after FFT is eliminated. In another preferred embodiment, the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor is corrected according to the frequency and/or weight of the tower, and the frequency and/or weight of the blades. Elimination of background noise can be achieved, for example, by passing the fast Fourier transformed signal through a filter with a suitable cut-off frequency, such as a bandpass filter. In addition, the effects of weather factors such as high winds can be excluded.

[0076] Through the above calculation method, the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor can be determined accurately and quickly. Here, by performing the transformation from the time domain to the angular domain and performing the fast Fourier transform on the angular domain signal, the frequency spectrum signal of the vibration of the nacelle can be easily obtained, so that the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor can be quickly obtained. [0077] Determining the health state of the blade root fastener based on the amplitude. For example, an alarm signal indicating that maintenance should be performed should be issued when the amplitude exceeds a first threshold, and a shutdown signal indicating that a shutdown should be issued when the amplitude exceeds a second threshold. The first threshold and the second threshold can be determined, for example, based on historical data, such as historical health state data or statistical values or empirical values. Both of these thresholds can be determined theoretically. For example, the relationship between the number of broken bolts of each blade of each turbine and the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor (2P) can be obtained by calculation, so that the alarm threshold of the final 2P amplitude can be determined by determining the number of broken bolts at time of the alarm. This threshold determination process can also be done or improved through machine learning. For example, after each amplitude analysis is completed, the amplitude information is stored for subsequent statistical analysis or threshold setting operations. The historical amplitude information can also be used to filter the acquired signal sequence to avoid misjudgment of data caused by abnormal data. For example, the first threshold may be set to exceed the historical average by 50%-100%, and the second threshold may be set to exceed the historical average by 100%-200%.

[0078] The controller 102 may be implemented as a discrete hardware module in the wind turbine or as part of the pitch system; the controller 102 may be implemented as software, such as a software module of a control system of the pitch system, or a local computer or a remote server or an application program on a user mobile device, etc. In the case of hardware implementation, the controller 102 may include, for example, a field programmable logic gate array FPGA, an application specific integrated circuit ASIC, a special purpose processor, etc. In the case of a software implementation, the controller 102 may be implemented as software code stored on a memory, which may be executed by a dedicated or general-purpose processor to perform the described steps.

[0079] The optional remote communication module 104, which is configured to remotely transmit the health state of the blade root fastener to the user mobile device. The remote communication module 104 may be implemented, for example, as a Wi-Fi module, a Bluetooth module, an infrared communication module, a cellular communication module, a transceiver, etc. Herein, through the remote communication module 104, the user can communicate with the system 100 to obtain the health state and issue shutdown or attitude adjustment instructions to the system 100 when necessary. In this embodiment, the remote communication module 104 is connected to the network 106 through the relay device 105 and communicates with the user mobile device 107 through the network 106. However, this is merely exemplary, and in other embodiments, the system 100 may communicate directly with the user mobile device 107 as well. Additionally, the remote communication module 104 may have an antenna 110 for wireless communication with the relay device 105.

[0080] The pitch actuator 103, which is configured to perform a pitch operation based on the health state of the blade root fastener. For example, when the amplitude of the nacelle exceeds the second threshold, the pitch actuator 103 is used to adjust the blade attitude or shut down the wind turbine. In a preferred embodiment, the user can instruct the pitch actuator 103 to perform a pitch operation through the user mobile device 107.

[0081] The present invention has at least the following beneficial effects: (1) Through the present invention, it is possible to accurately determine whether the failure of the blade root fastener occurs, which is based on the following insight of the inventor: the inventor found through research that failures such as breaking and loosening of the blade root fastener will cause abnormal changes in blade attitude, such as a reduction in the natural vibration frequency of the blade, which in turn will lead to lateral vibration of the nacelle. Not only that, the inventors have also discovered the specificity of this lateral vibration, specifically, the various lateral vibrations of the nacelle are not all associated with the failure of the blade root fasteners, only the vibration of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor has a strong correlation with the failure of the blade root fastener. That is to say, the frequency of the lateral vibration of the nacelle caused by the failure of the blade root fastener is exactly the same as the frequency at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor. Therefore, by detecting the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor, it can be accurately judged whether the failure of the blade root fastener has occurred. (2) Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the characteristics of simpler calculation, lower hardware cost, more practicability, etc. This is because the present invention only needs to detect acceleration and rotational speed, which can be realized by PCH acceleration, and the calculation process is simple, so the software and hardware of the present invention are low in cost, simple in operation, and strong in practicability.

[0082] FIG. 2 shows the flow of a method 200 according to the present invention, wherein the dashed boxes represent optional steps.

[0083] In step 202, obtained is the sequence of acceleration signals representing the lateral vibration of the nacelle and the sequence of rotational speed signals representing the rotational speed of the rotor.

[0084] In optional step 204, the amplitude is filtered based on historical amplitude data to remove the effects of abnormal data.

[0085] In step 206, the sequence of acceleration signals and the sequence of rotational speed signals are analyzed to determine the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor.

[0086] In optional step 208, the amplitude corresponding to 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor is corrected according to the frequency and/or weight of the tower and the frequency and/or weight of the blade.

[0087] In step 210, the health state of the blade root fastener is determined based on the amplitude.

[0088] FIG. 3 shows an example of a monitoring process according to the present invention.

[0089] Curves 301-304 represent the rotational speed of the rotor, the lateral acceleration of the nacelle, the amplitude of the nacelle at 2-time-frequncy of the rotational speed of the rotor, and the alarm signal level, respectively. In this example, at point of time 503, the system 100 detects through curves 301-303 that one or more bolt breaks have occurred, and automatically performs shutdown protection. At the same time, an early warning message is sent to the station, prompting the operation and maintenance personnel to perform maintenance.

[0090] While some embodiments of the invention have been described in this document, those skilled in the art will appreciate that these embodiments are shown by way of example only. Numerous modifications, alternatives and improvements will occur to those skilled in the art under the teachings of this invention without departing from the scope of this invention. It is intended that the appended claims define the scope of the invention and that methods and structures within the scope of these claims themselves and their equivalents be covered thereby.