Analysis of wind power quality disturbances due to mechanical defects in gearbox using acoustic sensor and current transformer

Abstract

Power quality in wind turbines has become a major issue because of harmonic distortions, unbalance voltages, voltage fluctuations. Mainly harmonics occur in the wind mills if the rotor blades does not respond to the wind power. Moreover the gearbox in wind turbines does not respond to the rotor. Therefore the mechanical power from the rotor is not properly transferred to the generator. Here to analyse the power quality of the wind turbines, two methods are proposed. Using an acoustic sensor on the gear box we can acquire the sound signals from the gear box attached to the rotor. From the sound signals we can analyse the harmonics present. And by using a current transformer in the load we can acquire the power signals and analysing the harmonics present in the signal. Finally performing a correlation of the two signals we can reduce the harmonics. The simulation results provides a reproduction of the signal without harmonics. The simulation results are carried out using Matlab.