wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy.

If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or pumping water, the device is called a windmill or wind pump. Developed for over a millennium, today's wind turbines are manufactured in a range of vertical and horizontal axis types. The smallest turbines are used for applications such as battery charging or auxiliary power on sailing boats; while large grid-connected arrays of turbines are becoming an increasingly large source of commercial electric power. vibration Vibration refers to mechanical oscillations about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be periodic such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road. More often, vibration is undesirable, wasting energy and creating unwanted sound noise. For example, the vibrational motions of engines, electric motors, or any mechanical device in operation are typically unwanted. Careful designs usually minimize unwanted vibrations. Types of wind turbines Wind turbines can rotate about either a horizontal or a vertical axis, the former being both older and more common Horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) have the main rotor shaft and electrical generator at the top of a tower, and must be pointed into the wind. Vertical-axis wind turbines (or VAWTs) have the main rotor shaft arranged vertically. Key advantages of this arrangement are that the turbine does not need to be pointed into the wind to be effective. Wind Turbine Vibrations n Vibration analysis There is many years experience of monitoring the low frequency vibrations from wind turbines. These low frequency vibrations can be problematic for installations that are sensitive to seismic noise, such as seismic monitoring stations and other sensitive scientific instruments. The wind conditions are constantly changing, so each vibration measurement taken could potentially be at a different speed and load condition. And what is worse is that the speed can vary as the blades rotate. Even the nacelle (the house at the top of the tower) will rotate as the wind direction changes. And one more small challenge is that the whole structure can vibrate and resonate due to the construction of the tower and nacelle. Therefore, routine monitoring by

vibration analysts visiting the wind turbines on a routine basis is almost out of the question As with all vibration monitoring applications, it is essential that the monitoring system can at least acquire enough data to warn when the vibration levels are increasing - even if there is not enough data to actually diagnose the problem remotely. Causes of vibrations Such vibrations can be caused by imbalances in the rotating parts, uneven friction, the meshing of gear teeth, etc. Overall vibration values for reliable wind turbines less vibration is better Condition-based maintenance on wind Turbines not only involves maintenance, but also encompasses servicing, Inspection, measurement and evaluation of the condition of the unit. The Current condition can be evaluated on The basis of machine-specific overall Vibration values. Until now, overall vibration values had not been defined For wind turbines. In fact, ISO 10816-3 Explicitly excludes wind power plants. Vibration values for Wind turbines up to 3 MW. Assessing the vibration level and reducing vibrations Piezoelectric accelerometers can be used to measure both low frequency vibrations beginning with 0.1 Hz and high frequency vibrations up to 6 kHz. Acceptance measurements should be made in the following typical measurement directions: radial vertical, radial horizontal and axial. A minimum load of 20 % is required.

Based on the overall vibration values, it is now possible to assess the vibration levels of wind turbines and to compare these. After all, the experience made during service is that less vibration means a longer machine life must also apply to wind turbines. The early detection and reduction of elevated vibration levels therefore extends wind turbine service life. Identifying corrective measures The required measures can be identified

by means of a condition diagnosis. Diagnosis specialists use amplitude spectra, envelope spectra, time signals and/or cepstra to detect unusual vibration signals, to identify dominant excitations and to evaluate frequency specific trends using the water fall display function. detecting additional vibrations resulting from a generator fault identifying deviations in the machine alignment:

reducing rotor blade imbalances.

Abstract A mathematical model for an elastic wind turbine blade mounted on a rigid test stand is derived and compared with experimental results. The linear equations of motion describe small rotations of the test stand, blade lateral deflections and rotation of the chord. Warping, extension and tilt of the cross-sections are slaved to the dependent minimal co-ordinates in order to reduce the number of state variables. Using the principle of virtual work, a procedure is employed which combines the volume discretization of general solid, or shell-type finite elements (FE), with the approach of global form functions (stretching over the whole blade length). The equations of motion are solved as an eigenvalue problem and the results are compared with an experimental modal analysis of a 19 m long blade. The computed eigenfrequencies fit well, but the mathematical model underestimates the pitch motion of the blade chord. Parameter studies show the effect of warping. Despite the few degrees of freedom and uncertainties in the model parameters, the mathematical model approximates the measured blade dynamics well. Vibrations of a wind turbine have a negative impact on its performance. Mitigating this undesirable impact requires knowledge of the relationshipbetween the vibrations and other wind turbine parameters that could be potentially modified. Three approaches for ranking the impact importance of measurable turbine parameters on the vibrations of the drive train and the tower are discussed. They include the predictor importance analysis, the global sensitivity analysis, and the correlation coefficient analysis versed in data mining and statistics. To decouple the impact of wind speed on the vibrations of the drive train and the tower, the analysis is performed on datasets with narrow speed ranges. Wavelet analysis is applied to filter noisy accelerometer data. To exclude the impact malfunctions on the vibration analysis, the data are analyzed in a frequency domain. Data-mining algorithms are used to build models with turbine parameters of interest as inputs, and the vibrations of drive train and tower as outputs. The performance of each model is thoroughly evaluated based on metrics widely used in the wind industry. The neural network algorithm outperforms other classifiers and is considered to be the most promising approach to studywind turbine vibrations.