Aug 2026· Energies· Vol 19, pp. 3696· 0 citations· 45 references
Abstract
Wind turbine blade failure diagnosis is of critical importance, as the inability to reliably detect such faults can result in substantial financial losses, prolonged downtime, extensive repair activities, as well as increased operation and maintenance costs. This paper introduces a new application of energy distance and permutation testing for wind turbine blade fault diagnosis based on vibration data analysis. The proposed approach combines a non-parametric energy distance and permutation testing for the identification and characterization of blade faults in wind turbines. Unlike conventional approaches, this method does not require the assumption of a normal data distribution, which is particularly important when analysing vibration signals, as such data often deviates from normality. The approach is also robust against the presence of outliers. The energy distance metric is employed to classify the blade condition of the wind turbine and to investigate subtle changes in blade behaviour by comparing healthy and corresponding faulty states while considering the entire data distribution rather than conventional summary statistics. In the second stage, a permutation test is applied to statistically validate the energy distance results via p-values. The proposed method is validated using experimental vibration datasets representing healthy and faulty blade conditions, including cracked, eroded, twisted, and imbalanced faults. These datasets are analysed under varying wind speed conditions to assess the robustness of the proposed method under different operating conditions. In the second stage, the permutation test confirms the statistical significance of the detected distributional differences, providing additional confidence in the diagnostic results. The findings indicate that the combined use of energy distance and permutation testing effectively identifies and detects the faults from the healthy blade behaviour across two different wind speed conditions. The findings of this study indicate the potential of the proposed approach as a simple, robust, and interpretable solution for wind turbine blade fault diagnosis based on vibration data analysis.
Wind turbine blade faults, such as surface erosion, cracks, mass imbalance, and twist deformation, significantly compromise operational efficiency and reliability, thereby increasing maintenance costs. This research presents an artificial neural network (ANN)-based diagnostic approach for identifying five distinct fault states in wind turbine blades using vibration signal data collected at a constant operational speed of 1.3 m/s. The dataset, which encapsulates real-world vibration responses under varying fault conditions, was analyzed to extract amplitude features for classification. A balanced dataset of 500 samples per class was used to ensure robust training and evaluation. The ANN model achieved highly reliable performance, with classification accuracies (CA) of 96.21% (crack), 97.12% (erosion), 95.47% (healthy), 96.04% (twist deformation), and 94.38% (mass imbalance). Corresponding F1-scores were 95.32%, 96.51%, 94.45%, 95.18%, and 93.36%, respectively. These results confirm the model's effectiveness in distinguishing between common wind turbine blade faults and healthy conditions. This study demonstrates the potential of ANN-based systems for intelligent fault detection in wind energy systems, aiding in the advancement of condition-based maintenance and operational safety.
Z. Khan, Shabbir Ahmad, A. Askar· Terra Joule Journal· 2 citations
The blades directly affect the safety and power generation efficiency of the wind turbines. With the blade size increases, the reliable modal identification becomes important for vibration-based health monitoring. Although operational modal analysis (OMA) technique has been used in condition monitoring for the wind turbine blades, most existing studies focus on investigating a specific single method or under ideal excitation conditions. To overcome this limitation, this study takes the IEA-15MW large wind turbine blade as the research object and compares three OMA methods through numerical simulations, namely covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification (SSI-COV), frequency domain decomposition (FDD), and poly-reference least squares complex frequency domain (PolyMAX). The performance of the modal parameter identification methods is evaluated with respect to different sensor layouts, blade–tower coupling conditions, and environmental excitations. The results indicate that sparse sensor deployment cannot reliably identify the damage-sensitive high-order and complex modes. A nine-channel layout concentrated near second-order deformation regions significantly improves the identification of second-order flapwise frequencies and controls the average error of the first six modes within 3%. PolyMAX shows the best identification stability under different numbers and layouts of the sensors. Blade–tower coupling changes the blade modal characteristics and increases identification difficulty. Under this condition, FDD can still identify both low-order and high-order modes with good stability. Under different real wind conditions, the increasing wind speed causes the aerodynamic load to deviate from the white noise assumption, generally leading to fluctuations in the identification errors, with relatively large local errors occurring at certain medium and high wind speeds. Overall, the three OMA methods show different advantages under different identification conditions. PolyMAX shows the best stability under different sensor layouts and performs best when wind speed increases in the coupled wind turbine model, indicating that it is the most suitable for the actual complex coupling effects and environmental conditions. This research hopefully provides a basis for the subsequent engineering application of vibration-based modal identification of large offshore blades.
Qiang Liu, Meng Zhang, Xu Han et al.· Energies· 0 citations
Vibration response analysis constitutes a pivotal approach for crack monitoring and early warning of damage identification in wind turbine blades. Traditional data-driven methods, however, demonstrate marked deficiencies in identification accuracy and generalization capability. To mitigate these issues, a method for crack damage identification in wind turbine blades is proposed, grounded in Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs). Initially, utilizing a scaled-down test platform for doubly fed wind turbines, simulation experiments on blade cracks were executed. Vibration data were amassed under varying crack locations and lengths to scrutinize the intrinsic relationship between crack characteristics and the three-dimensional vibration response of the blade root bearing pedestal. Subsequently, leveraging the rotating cantilever Euler–Bernoulli beam model, the physical correlation between cracks and vibrations was dissected, and a physical information constraint model was formulated. This model was then amalgamated with a GRU-Transformer network to establish a PINN model tailored for crack damage identification. Ultimately, the model underwent testing and validation utilizing experimental data. The outcomes reveal that, in comparison to traditional data-driven models, the PINN model exhibits superior accuracy and precision in crack identification and localization, along with exceptional generalization capability and noise resilience. This research provides a novel technical pathway for enhancing the intelligence level of health monitoring for wind turbine units and holds substantial engineering significance for achieving precise condition assessment and early fault warning.
Min Wang, G. Qin, Xiaofei Zhang· Machines· 0 citations
A hybrid methodology for classifying degradation stages and estimating a relative RUL-related degradation indicator for bearings is proposed by integrating synthetic data modeling, feature selection, and a combined unsupervised–supervised learning approach, offering a reliable and scalable solution for predictive maintenance and assessment of degradation progression in wind turbine bearings.
Gustavo Gomes Do Valle, Benjamin Soudhan, Meisam Mahdavi et al.· IEEE Access· 0 citations
This study presents the energy distance non-parametric approach for condition monitoring of multiple wind turbines within the same wind farm. The main objective of this work is to monitor the performance of wind turbines by comparing them against each other within the same farm. Traditional methods often rely on parametric assumptions, including normality, which are rarely satisfied in real-world applications. In contrast, the energy distance approach is fully non-parametric, does not assume normality, and is effective for distributions of any shape or location. It enables comparison at the distributional level without requiring explicit assumptions. To validate the proposed approach, SCADA data from a wind farm in Portugal was analyzed. Four wind turbines, including the unit operating in a fault condition, were comparatively analyzed using multiple parameters through the application of the Energy Distance method. The results demonstrate that this method provides a robust means of detecting faults earlier than traditional approaches, as faulty turbines show clear deviations from healthy turbine states. The analysis considered multiple parameters, including generated power, wind speed, hydraulic oil temperature, gearbox oil temperature, generator bearing temperature 2, gearbox bearing temperature, and others. Overall, the results of the study clearly indicate that when comparing the four wind turbines using the energy distance method, the turbine with a fault exhibits a significantly larger energy distance relative to all other turbines. This distinct difference effectively distinguishes the faulty turbine from the healthy ones. These findings confirm that the energy distance approach, based on distributional comparisons, is a robust, efficient, and easily interpretable method for the condition monitoring of wind turbines.
D. Teklemariyem, Syed Nasir Hussain Razvi, Abual Hassan et al.· e-Journal of Nondestructive...· 0 citations
The proposed method addresses both fault detection and degradation assessment for anti-friction bearings using simple vibration-based parameters based on rotor and bearing dynamics, providing a practical framework for predictive maintenance in industrial applications.
Haobin Wen, Khalid M. Almutairi, Jyoti K. Sinha et al.· Machines· 0 citations
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