Wind Energy

Rotor Monitoring Solutions

As turbines become larger, operational and maintenance issues such as rotor imbalance, downtime due to lost generating revenue and blade damage have become much more important. 

Most loads on turbine components originate in the rotor and three types have a large impact on performance:

• Loads that generate power
• Loads that damage the drive train
• Loads that could generate power, but don't

By measuring these loads, you can change operational behavior and increase energy generation.

Rotor Monitoring Solutions

The Moog Rotor Monitoring System (RMS) is a proven, robust load measuring system specifically designed for installation in the turbine hub.The system can be built-in during turbine manufacture or retrofitted to existing operational turbines.

The RMS system allows cost-effective remote monitoring of turbines by operators for the early detection of operational and maintenance issues such as:

• Presence of ice  - Certified by Germanischer Lloyd (GL), provides measurement of ice build-up on a turbine blade when rotating or stationary. This information enables the operator to avoid ice throw and blade damage. The system's capability to indicate when the ice has been shed from each individual blade also allows the operator to restart generation earlier and with confidence. This is estimated to increase generating revenue, without any operator intervention, by up to 15,000 USD per year for turbines in cold climates via predicted, controlled shutdown and automatic restart..
• Blade damage - Provides real-time notification of damage impacting the structural or aerodynamic performance of the blade, enabling early and planned remedial action and avoiding costly secondary damage
• Rotor imbalance - Provides information on both mass and aerodynamic imbalances, enabling early and planned remedial action, maximizing generation capacity and avoiding costly secondary damage. It has been shown that at least 20% of operational turbines have a significant imbalance, resulting in sub-optimal energy generation (i.e. not meeting the power curve) or excessive vibration, wear and concomitant maintenance.

Using detailed knowledge of the monitoring system and years of wind turbine industry knowledge, Moog offers a full data analysis service around the turbine rotor performance, enabling a turbines productivity to be tracked over its operational lifetime.