Anomaly Detection and Fault Diagnosis

Load assessment, as introduced in Chapters 10 and 11, definitely plays an important role in wind turbine reliability management. But load assessment addresses a specialized category of problems and faults, which happen as a result of excessive mechanical load. A wind turbine generator is a complex system, comprising a large number of electro-mechanical elements. Many other types of operational anomalies and faults could happen and do take place. This is the reason that we dedicate the last chapter to the general topic of anomaly detection and fault diagnosis. Anomaly detection techniques are supposed to identify anomalies from loads of seemingly homogeneous data and lead analysts and decision makers to timely, pivotal and actionable information. It bears a high relevance with the mission of reliability management for wind turbines.