Experimental fault characterization of doubly fed induction machines for wind power generation

For modern large wind farms, it is interesting to design an efficient diagnosis system oriented to wind turbine generators based on doubly-fed induction machine (DFIM). Intensive research effort has been focused on the signature analysis to predict or detect electrical and mechanical faults in induction machines. Different signals can be used, voltage, current, stray flux. In the case of wind generators, considering that both the machine signals and the control signals are accessible, for diagnostic purposes, there are interesting additional possibilities, for example the use of the converter modulating voltages. In this paper, a complete system is analyzed by suitable simulations and experimentations to deeply study fault influence and to identify the best diagnostic procedure to perform predictive maintenance