Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for wind turbines

The Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) method has been used to study the reliability of many different power generation systems. This paper now applies that method to a wind turbine (WT) system using a proprietary software reliability analysis tool. Comparison is made between the quantitative results of an FMEA and reliability field data from real wind turbine systems and their assemblies. These results are discussed to establish relationships which are useful for future wind turbine designs.The main system studied is an existing design 2 MW wind turbine with a Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG), which is then compared with a hypothetical wind turbine system using the Brushless Doubly Fed Generator (BDFG) of the same rating.The software reliability analysis tool used for these studies was Relex Reliability Studio 2007 Version 2.