Numerical modeling of the hydraulic blade pitch actuator in a spar‐type floating wind turbine considering fault conditions and their effects on global dynamic responses

Abstract

This paper deals with numerical modeling of the hydraulic blade pitch actuator and its effect on the dynamic responses of a floating spar-type wind turbine under valve fault conditions. A spar-type floating wind turbine concept is modeled and simulated using an aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulation tool (Simo-Riflex [SR]). Because the blade pitch system has the highest failure rate, a numerical model of the hydraulic blade pitch actuator with/without valve faults is developed and linked to SR to study the effects of faults on global responses of the spar-type floating wind turbine for different faults, fault magnitudes, and environmental conditions. The consequence of valve faults in the pitch actuator is that the blade cannot be pitched to the desired angle, so there may be a delay in the response due to excessive friction and the wrong voltage, or slit lock may cause runaway blade pitch. A short circuit may cause the blade to get stuck at a particular pitch angle. These faults contribute to rotor imbalance, which result in different effects on the turbine structure and the platform motions. The proposed method for combining global and hydraulic actuator models is demonstrated in case studies with stochastic wind and wave conditions and different types of valve faults.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. /journal/we FIGURE 2 Data transmission between Simo-Riflex (SR) and controller 373 CHO ET AL.

Recent Advances in Integrated Response Analysis of Floating Wind Turbines in a Reliability Perspective

“…The detection and effect of fault cases involving pitch actuator that becomes stuck for various reasons, and grid faults in terms of a short circuit resulting in a complete loss of torque, were considered in Refs. [105][106][107][108][109][110]. Detection and isolation of faults in drivetrain and rotor blades were investigated in Refs.…”

“…Similarly, a detailed numerical model was developed by Cho et al [109] to directly simulate the faults in the blade pitch actuator, which consists of a hydraulic pump, a set of directional control valves, a fluid tank, and a hydraulic cylinder, as shown in Fig. 17.…”

“…These faults are simulated in Ref. [109] using the developed hydraulic pitch actuator model, and the effects on the global responses of a spar floating wind turbine were investigated by coupling this model to the global response analysis model in the aero-hydro-servo-elastic code Simo-Riflex.…”

Load response of a two‐rotor floating wind turbine undergoing blade‐pitch system faults

“…Blade‐pitch actuation is driven either electrically or hydraulically 22 . Electrical actuation is more precise but can lead to backlash and to fast component wear due to the presence of gears.…”

A Sensor Data Processing Algorithm for Wind Turbine Hydraulic Pitch System Diagnosis

“…Although some of the components used in the Simscape model, such as the hydraulic reference, the pressure sensor or the torque source are provided by the foundation Simscape library, most components are Ikerlan's proprietary implementations [90] which draw on the ample literature on the topic [81,[91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103]. In particular, the accumulator models are, like Liniger et al's [80], based on the Benedict-Webb-Rubin equation of state for molecular nitrogen [104] with Otis and Pourmovahed's heat transfer model [105] (the difference is, of course, that we only use this model to generate validation data, not as part of an observer).…”