Lubrication oil condition monitoring and remaining useful life prediction with particle filtering

In order to reduce the costs of wind energy, it is necessary to improve the wind turbine availability and reduce the operational and maintenance costs. The reliability and availability of a functioning wind turbine depend largely on the protective properties of the lubrication oil for its drive train subassemblies such as the gearbox and means for lubrication oil condition monitoring and degradation detection. The wind industry currently uses lubrication oil analysis for detecting gearbox and bearing wear but cannot detect the functional failures of the lubrication oils. The main purpose of lubrication oil condition monitoring and degradation detection is to determine whether the oils have deteriorated to such a degree that they no longer fulfill their functions. This paper describes a research on developing online lubrication oil condition monitoring and remaining useful life prediction using particle filtering technique and commercially available online sensors. It first introduces the lubrication oil condition monitoring and degradation detection for wind turbines. Viscosity and dielectric constant are selected as the performance parameters to model the degradation of lubricants. In particular, the lubricant performance evaluation and remaining useful life prediction of degraded lubrication oil with viscosity and dielectric constant data using particle filtering are presented. A simulation study based on lab verified models is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed technique.