Gearbox and the blades are classified as the most critical and expensive components of the wind turbine. Moreover, these parts are prone to high risk failure when compared to the rest of the wind turbine components. Due to the global significant increase in wind turbines, a reliable and cost effective condition monitoring technique is essential to maintain the availability and to improve the reliability of wind turbines. This paper aims to present a comprehensive review of the latest condition monitoring techniques for turbine gearbox and blades which are considered as the crux of any wind energy conversion system.

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One of the most expensive and critical component in wind turbines is the gearbox. Gearbox failure may have significant impacts on the network in terms of continuity of power supply especially in islanded areas where the majority of power demand is supplied by wind farms. As such, an effective condition monitoring technique for wind turbine gearbox should be adopted to avoid any catastrophic failure to the gearbox and maintain system reliability. This paper presents a technique to monitor the gearbox condition through monitoring the shaft torque and the gearbox vibration signals. Practical measurement is conducted on a test rig that emulating real wind turbine operation. Model based control technique using voltage slider by injecting a current through the induction generator stator terminals is applied to emulate real fault conditions on the wind turbine blades such as icing accumulation, wind share and gust wind. Order analysis technique is used to analyse and compare the obtained signals during normal and abnormal operating conditions.

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Wind turbine gearbox is a key component in any wind energy conversion system and online monitoring of the gearbox is essential to maintain system reliability. This paper investigates the impact of gearbox lubrication oil contamination on the performance of wind turbine drivetrain. In this context, vibration signal of the gearbox is measured and analyzed under various contamination levels of the gearbox oil. A thermal camera is used to identify the hot spot location within the gearbox during the investigated case studies. Results show that quality of gearbox oil has a significant impact on the overall performance of the wind energy conversion system.