Published on October 2011 | Reliability

Computation of Reliability and Birnbaum Importance of Components of a Wind Turbine at High Uncertain Wind

The reliable and uninterrupted power generation using wind turbines is valuable due to its environmental impacts and escalation in energy cost. The wind turbine system has a complex and repairable components. The failure of these components causes insufficient generation of power. For minimizing the lifecycle cost of a turbine and failure, it is important to evaluate the reliability level for all components. The paper deals with reliability importance analysis for major components of wind turbine system and its sub systems such as rotor system, gear box, brake system, generator, hydraulic system and yaw system. It also deals with the method of increasing the efficiency of generation by improving the life of the individual component. The system reliability is calculated through a combined study of RBD analysis, Birnbaum analytical failure criticality index and operational Criticality index for a grid connected 250 kW wind turbine. The main objective of this paper is to develop a mathematical model using a Birnbaum importance of components on the constant speed and constant pitch wind turbines with considering all the major sub assemblies to quantify the probability and reliability at high uncertain wind in Muppandal site, Aramboly pass, India.