Detection of Wind Turbine Gear Tooth Defects Using Sideband Energy Ratio™
Detection of Wind Turbine Gear Tooth Defects Using Sideband Energy Ratio™
Detection of Wind Turbine Gear Tooth Defects Using Sideband Energy Ratio™
C. Hatch
Principal Engineer/Technologist
[email protected]
M. Kalb
Lead Engineer/Technologist
[email protected]
A. Weiss
Senior Product Manager
[email protected]
H. Luo
Senior Technical Manager
[email protected]
GE Energy
1631 Bently Parkway South
Minden, Nevada USA 89423
Abstract:
Gear tooth defect detection is an important capability of any wind turbine condition monitoring system.
The Bently Nevada ADAPT.wind™ monitoring system has been designed specifically to monitor gear tooth condi-
tion and bearing health of wind turbine generators. The focus of this paper is the theory and application of gear de-
fect detection using machine casing vibration. Sideband Energy Ratio™ (SER), a patent pending algorithm utilized
in the Bently Nevada ADAPT.wind monitoring system, has been developed specifically to aid in the detection of
gear tooth damage. SER calculates the ratio of side band energy to gear mesh center frequency energy and has
demonstrated high sensitivity to gear damage in several cases. The theory behind SER and a case history showing
successful gear tooth defect detection on parallel stage gear meshes of two wind turbine gearboxes is presented.
These gearboxes were inspected, and specific gear damage was documented prior to sensor installation and data
collection. These gear defects are clearly visible in the data when analyzed utilizing the Bently Nevada
ADAPT.wind monitoring system and the SER algorithm.
Amplitude Modulation
To understand SER, first sidebands must be understood. Sidebands appear in a spectrum around a center frequency
and generally occur as a result of an amplitude modulation of that center frequency. Amplitude modulation itself has
a familiar use in AM radio in which it is used as a technique for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. In
typical amplitude modulation, the carrier signal is a single tone with frequency, , similar to Eq. (1).
cos 2 (1)
The amplitude, A, of the carrier signal is modulated by a lower frequency modulation signal (this is the message
signal for communications), .
1 (2)
Without loss of generality, we can assume the modulation signal is a single frequency tone with frequency, . Sub-
stituting this in for in Eq. (2) gives the following.
Where is called the modulation index (which is less than 1 in radio communication for better signal recovery).
Expanding Eq. (3), we have
As a result, this amplitude modulation produces multiple frequency components, i.e., the carrier frequency, , and
side bands , , and, , which are slightly above and below the carrier frequency. The amplitude of the
carrier frequency depends on the value of the modulation index, , as seen in Figure 1 (for modulation index less
than 1) and Figure 2 (for modulation index greater than 1). This type of amplitude modulation that results in two
sidebands and a carrier is often called double sideband amplitude modulation (DSB-AM). Additionally, the carrier
frequency should be substantially greater than the frequency of the modulation signal. If the bandwidth of is
Hz, carrier frequency has to be greater than 2 to avoid overlap of spectra centered at and . In many real
applications, the modulation is not just a single tone but consists of multiple frequencies. Multiple frequencies in the
modulation function cause multiple sidebands to appear in the spectrum as seen in Figure 3.
Figure 1: Timebase and spectrum plots Figure 2: Timebase and spectrum plots
for 1 amplitude modulation. for 1 amplitude modulation.
Case History
Several cases of gear damage were documented by
borescope inspections on 1.5MW-class wind tur-
bine generator gearboxes (See Figure 4 for general
gearbox layout). During the inspections, damage to
gear teeth on the high speed intermediate stage
shaft (HSIS) pinion was discovered and photo-
graphed. The gearboxes with this documented dam-
age were then outfitted with accelerometer sensors
and data was collected and analyzed using the Bent-
ly Nevada ADAPT.wind monitoring system. The
two case studies that follow illustrate successful
detection of the known gear damage by the SER
algorithm.
Figure 4: Gearbox Layout
Figure 10: Case 2 spectrum showing 1X, 2X, and 3X intermediate gear mesh frequency harmonics with side-
bands spaced at HSIS shaft speed indicating HSIS pinion damage.