Important Challenges for 10 MW Reference Wind Turbine from RAMS Perspective

Objective: To identify important challenges which are necessary to overcome for conducting the RAMS (Reliability, availability, maintainability and safety) analysis in an efficient and cost effective way.Methodology: RAMS analysis has become an active area of research to measure the efficiency of any operational system for evaluating its performance as per its designed features. The accuracy of measurements and analysis heavily depend upon how the RAMS related issues and challenges are addressed before planning the operational strategies to enhance the system availability for power output. It means that different RAMS related aspects are to be identified in congruent with the start of the design for a new product. So for providing sound basis for RAMS related analysis, an investigation has been carried out to identify important challenges which need to be addressed for having a robust and cost effective product satisfying the design parameters and operational strategies in a holistic way. For this purpose 10 MW reference wind turbine has been selected as a case study which is in the conceptual design phase now a day. For highlighting important challenges and issues, the framework has been developed to see how the design choice influences the operations. Moreover the particular design choice could also get feedback from operations to make new generations of the product in a better and innovative way.Results (expected): The feedback being acquired from the operational phase will provide basis to conduct the finite element and fatigue load analyses to find the areas prone to higher stress concentration. Based on such information, necessary modifications and improvements could be suggested for latest versions of that product. Maximum power capacity of existing wind turbines is 5 MW and to double the output of such machines is not a simple scaling problem. So the identification of important RAMS challenges and issues are directly helpful to solve such scaling problems to make these new machines more reliable and consequently more attractive for investors. The integration of design process and RAMS aspects in the proposed way will end in harmonizing and solving the scaling issues for bigger machines even beyond 10 MW reference wind turbine and making them viable from operational and investment point of view.