SCADA-Compatible and Scaleable Visualization Tool for Corrosion Monitoring of Offshore Wind Turbine Structures

Abstract

The exploitation of offshore windfarms (WFs) goes hand in hand with large capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX), as these mechanical installations operate continuously for multiple decades in harsh, saline conditions. OPEX can account for up to 30% of the levelised cost of energy (LCoE) for a deployed offshore wind farm. To maintain the cost-competitiveness of deployed offshore WFs versus other renewable energy sources, their LCoE has to be kept in check, both by minimising the OPEX and optimising the offshore wind energy production. As corrosion, in particular uniform corrosion, is a major cause of failure of offshore wind turbine structures, there is an urgent need for corrosion management systems for deployed offshore wind turbine structures (WTs). Despite the fact that initial corrosion protection solutions are already integrated on some critical structural components such as WT towers, WT transition pieces or WT sub-structure (fixed or floating platforms), these components can still be harshly damaged by the corrosive environmental offshore conditions. The traditional preventive maintenance strategy, in which regular manual inspections by experts are necessary, is widely implemented nowadays in wind farm applications. Unfortunately, for such challenging operating environments, regular human inspections have a significant cost, which eventually increase the OPEX. To minimise the OPEX, remote corrosion monitoring solutions combined with supporting software (SW) tools are thus necessary. This paper focuses on the development of a software (SW) tool for the visualisation of corrosion measurement data. To this end, criteria for efficient structural corrosion analysis were identified, namely a scaleable, SCADA-compatible, secure, web accessible tool that can visualise 3D relationships. In order to be effective, the SW tool requires a tight integration with decision support tools. This paper provides three insights: Firstly, through a literature study and non-exhaustive market study, it is shown that a combined visualisation and decision SW tool is currently non-existing in the market. This gap motivates a need for the development of a custom SW tool. Secondly, the capabilities of the developed custom software tool, consisting of a backend layer and visualisation browser designed for this task are demonstrated and discussed in this paper. This indicates that a SCADA-compatible visualisation software tool is possible, and can be a major stepping stone towards a semi-automated decision support toolchain for offshore wind turbine corrosion monitoring.

Analysis of Wind Turbine Equipment Failure and Intelligent Operation and Maintenance Research

“…These models not only contribute to the sustainable development of the wind power industry but also help wind power plant managers and operators to optimize the performance and efficiency of wind turbines. Verhelst et al [138] developed corrosion measurement data visualization software that identifies standards for effective structural corrosion analysis as a scalable, SCADA-compatible, secure, and network-accessible tool, showing that SCADA-compatible visualization software tools are possible and can significantly reduce the technical and experiential requirements for O&M service personnel. However, since it is difficult to quantify the corrosion process theoretically, both the quantity and quality of data are extremely important, which also requires relevant organizations to raise risk awareness and collect adequate data in a timely manner.…”

Switching Kalman Filtering-Based Corrosion Detection and Prognostics for Offshore Wind-Turbine Structures

“…Indeed, uniform corrosion may reduce the steel wall of the wind turbine structure beyond its corrosion allowance, at which point the structure reaches the end of useful life. The thickness of the steel wall of the wind turbine structure can be continuously measured using ultrasound sensors mounted on the interior side of the wall [4,5] and corrosion information (including corrosion prognosis) can then be visualized for the onshore wind farm operator [6]. We remark that ultrasound is but one possible technique to monitor corrosion, see, e.g., [7], where electrochemical techniques are used instead of ultrasound.…”

Detection, Prognosis and Decision Support Tool for Offshore Wind Turbine Structures

“…To support a systematic corrosion assessment and management of OWTs, an integrated system/solution that is able to handle corrosion monitoring data and to transform and visualize the data into actionable information is therefore required for the offshore wind energy industry. However, to the authors' knowledge, as discussed in previous works [8,9], tools and solutions that can serve the aforementioned purpose are still very limited and not mature yet.…”