Bearing Fault Detection in Wind Turbines with Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machines

A strategy for the detection of bearing faults in variable speed wind turbines with permanent magnet synchronous machines is presented in this paper. The strategy consists on processing the measured vibration signals as well as the machine voltages. From these voltages and using a phase locked loop, the electrical angle is calculated in order to resample vibrations synchronized with rotor position. Then, it is possible to use conventional vibration-based techniques for bearing fault detection even under variable speed operation conditions. Experimental results to validate the proposed strategy are also presented in this work.