A review of failure prognostics for predictive maintenance of offshore wind turbines

Abstract

Offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are important facilities for wind power generation because of their low land use and high electricity output. However, the harsh environment and remote location of offshore sites make it difficult to conduct maintenance on turbines. To upkeep OWTs cost-effectively, predictive maintenance (PdM) is an appealing strategy for offshore wind industry. The heart of PdM is failure prognostics, which aims to predict an asset’s remaining useful life (RUL) based on condition monitoring (CM). To provide references to PdM of OWTs, this paper presents a systematic review of failure prognostic models for wind turbines. In this review, data-driven models, model-based models, and hybrid models are classified and presented for model selection. The findings reveal that it is promising to develop hybrid models in the future and combine the advantages of data-driven and model-based models. Currently, the internal combinations of machine learning methods and statistical approaches in data-driven models are more common than exterior linkages between data-driven models and model-based models. The limitations and strengths of different models are discussed, and opportunities for developing hybrid models are highlighted in the conclusion.