Theoretical and Experimental Study on Wind

Wheel Unbalance for A Wind Turbine

Dongxiang Jiang, Qian,Huang, Liangyou Hong
State Key Laboratory of Control and Simulation of Power System and Generation Equipment
Department of Thermal Engineering, Tsinghua University
Beijing 100084, China
jiangdx@tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract—In order to ensure safety of wind turbines using non-
grid-connected wind power and to reduce the occurrence of
faults, as well as to improve the reliability of wind turbines, three
different wind wheel unbalance faults are researched through
theoretical analysis and experimental simulation in laboratory
conditions. A wind turbine test rig has been established and a
wind turbine condition monitoring has been developed. Three
wind wheel unbalance faults are simulated on the test rig, and by
analyzing the experimental results of power output and vibration
characteristics in different conditions, the influence of wind
wheel unbalance on power output and vibration characteristics is
presented.
Keywords-Non-grid-connected wind power; wind turbine; wind
wheel unbalance; theoretical analysis; experimental study
II. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS ON WIND WHEEL
UNBALANCE FAULTS
Three classic wind wheel unbalance faults described in this
section include rotor mass unbalance, aerodynamic asymmetry,
and yaw misalignment.
A. Rotor mass unbalance
A simplified model of a 3-bladed rotor is shown in Fig. 1.
Each blade of the rotor can be described using mass mi, which
is located in the blade’s center of gravity with a distance ri to
the rotor axis. For a perfectly mass-balanced rotor, the
constraint is given by
 m1 r1  m2 r2  m3 r3  

I. INTRODUCTION
At present, grid-connected wind energy is the only
application method of large-scale wind energy in the world.
However, the direct application of large-scale, non-grid-
connected wind power in high-energy consumption enterprises
or other end-users, adapting to the characteristic of wind power
is an important, developing direction for wind power.
Compared with a grid-connected wind turbine, a non-grid-
connected wind turbine obviates the controlling problem of the
voltage difference, phase difference, and frequency difference.
As a result, a non-grid-connected wind turbine usually has
abolished the use of gear box, and adopted a fixed pitch rotor
and a direct-drive wind turbine generator, which demands
higher reliability. In order to ensure the stable operation of
wind turbines as well as the efficient utilization of wind
resources, the study of a wind turbine test rig and fault
experiments is necessary [1-5].
First, a wind turbine test rig is introduced, which comprises
an axial flow fan to provide a wind source and a wind-driven Figure 1. Rotor mass unbalance simplified model.
power generating system. Second, a wind turbine condition
monitoring system has been developed. The operation situation In this condition, the absolute value of the centrifugal
of the key components of a wind turbine can be monitored by forces for each blade is equal. The sum of the three force
measuring its output power and vibration characteristics. Third, vectors will be zero because of the symmetric geometry of the
the theoretical analysis of three kinds of wind wheel unbalance, rotor:
which are mass unbalance, aerodynamic asymmetries, and   
skew wind, is described. Then, a wind wheel unbalance faults  FC1  FC 2  FC 3  F C1  F C 2  F C 3  0  
simulation experimental system has been designed, and the
experimental results of faults simulation are presented. The
results have verified the effectiveness of the experimental where FCi（i=1，2，3）stands for the centrifugal forces of
system. each blade of the rotating rotor respectively.
In a mass unbalance condition, one of the blades’ mass mi
978-1-4244-4702-2/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
or the distance ri changes. A rotor mass unbalance can be
described using a virtual mass mR which is located in a virtual
distance rR, as shown in Fig. 1. When the rotor rotates, the
unbalance mass will induce a resulting centrifugal force to the
rotor axis

 FCR  mR rR  2  

where ω stands for the rotor circular frequency.

When a wind turbine tower is constructed, it has a larger
stiffness in vertical direction and a smaller stiffness in the
horizontal direction; the vibration of the unit due to mass
unbalance is mainly in horizontal direction. The horizontal
component of the centrifugal force is shown as follows:
Figure 2. Relation of forces acting on blade element and angle of attack.
 FCRx (t )  FCR sin(0  t )  

where φ0 stands for the initial phase angle. Obviously, the

horizontal component force FCRx is a harmonic force. This
leads to a periodic transverse vibration of the wind turbine unit
at rotor circular frequency ω (which is the so called 1p-
frequency).
B. Aerodynamic asymmetries
When the blades have different aerodynamic behaviors,
aerodynamic rotor asymmetries are caused. The reason could
be that the angle of attack is different due to assembling faults
of the blade pitch drive or blade surface roughness. In this
condition, the thrust for the individual blades are significant
different due to different attack angles and blade profiles. If
one blade gives a faulty angle of attack β2, which is lower than
the designed operational angel of attack β1 due to a pitch angle
fault, as shown in Fig. 2, the axial thrust FN1 of abnormal blade
is lower than FN2 of the two others, while the circumferential
trust FT1 is higher than FT2. In that case, the gap of these two
thrusts excites a periodic transverse vibration of the wind
turbine unit. This happens once per rotor revolution [6].
Also, the reduction of the circumferential trust leads to a Figure 3. Relation of wind velocity and skew angle for a blade rotor.
decrease of output power.
where V stands for wind speed with skew angle; o stands for
C. Yaw misalignment skew angle; and θ stands for rotor blades phase (angle between
Yaw misalignment may due to assembling faults of the blade current position and datum phase position).
blade yaw drive [6]. In a yaw misalignment, wind forces on In the skew wind condition, as the aerodynamic thrust on
blades with a skew angle γ are shown in Fig. 3. Airfoil relative the blade is changed once per revolution, the tower torsion
wind velocity V1 and wind velocity far up stream V0 changed moment oscillation will increase at a 3p-frequency component,
as as the blade number is 3. Also, the reduction of the wind area
due to skew wind leads to a decrease of output power.
  V0  V cos o  
III. NON-GRID-CONNECTED WIND TURBINE TEST RIG
PLATFORM
 V1  (V sin o cos    r1 ) 2 (1  b) 2  (V0 (1  a)) 2   A non-grid wind turbine test rig is shown in Fig. 4. The test
rig comprised a 15kW axial flow fan for providing a wind
source, a wind tunnel for assembling the wind, a frequency
changer for wind speed control, a 300W-horizontal-axis wind
turbine with 3 blades, and a three-phase generator. Wind
rotates the wind turbine and drives the generator. The output
AC signal of the wind turbine is converted into a DC signal by
the rectifier. The battery is charging when the battery voltage is
lower than its rating. Otherwise, the DC signal will be
converted into a 220V AC signal by an inverter to supply an
AC load.
change with time. Therefore, the Fourier transform often
cannot fulfill the rotor blades fault detection task pretty well.
As wavelet analysis employs mainly the expansion and
contraction of the basis function to detect, simultaneously, the
characteristics of global and local of the measured signal, the
time-frequency contour map by wavelet transform has a
significant advantage in the analysis of non-stationary signals.

Figure 4. Test rig of the wind turbine.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON WIND WHEEL UNBALANCE

In the laboratory, the three different kinds of wind wheel
unbalance faults mentioned above have been simulated, and
the set vibration and output power of the test wind turbine have
been measured. Figure 5. Output power characteristic curves of the test wind turbine.
Mass unbalance was achieved by sticking a quality piece
on one of the three blades. Aerodynamic asymmetry was
achieved by adjusting one of the wind turbine blade’s initial
installation angle. Skew wind was achieved by setting the yaw
angle.
In the experiment, the test wind turbine was in the wind,
and the wind tunnel was started to the test the wind speed. The
average output power of each test wind speed was measured to
calculate the output power’s characteristic curve. Stabilize the
wind speed at a specific value so that the vibration
characteristics in that condition can be obtained through the
acceleration sensor install on the turbine.
Fig. 5 shows the output power characteristic curves of the
test wind turbine in different conditions. From Fig. 5, it can be
found that, compared with the output power characteristic
curve in normal condition, the output power characteristic
curve did not drop in a mass unbalance condition, compared
with the curve in normal condition, while in an aerodynamic
asymmetry condition and a skew wind condition, the curve has
dropped significantly. Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 show frequency
spectrums of generator vibration and tower vibration in
different conditions.
The faults of mass unbalance and aerodynamic asymmetry
can cause a clear increase of vibration spectral component
at1p-frequency, while the vibration has a clear increase with
spectral components at 3p-frequency in a skew wind condition.
Thus, the vibration signal not only can be used to detect rotor
Figure 6. Frequency spectrum of generator vibration in different conditions.
mass unbalance, aerodynamic asymmetry, and yaw
misalignment, but also to distinguish between the different
types of faults, combined with the output power characteristics.
The vibration signals are often non-stationary and represent
non-linear processes, and their frequency components will
 Figure 9. Frequency spectrums of vibration signals in different positions.

Figure 7. Frequency spectrum of tower vibration in different conditions.

Fig. 8 shows time waveforms of vibration signals that had a

yaw misalignment that occurred at the time t=1s. Fig. 9 shows
the frequency spectrums of vibration signals, and the changing
of the signals can not be detected from this figure.
Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 show time-frequency contour map of
generator and tower vibration signals. From these figures, it Figure 10. Time-frequency contour map of generator vibration signal.
can be clearly detected that vibration components at 3p-
frequency had a significant increase at the time t=1s. The
results show that the time-frequency contour map by wavelet
transform can be used to detect the faults.

Figure 11. Time-frequency contour map of tower vibration signal.

Figure 8. Time waveforms of vibration signals in different positions.

 V. CONCLUSION
The wind wheel unbalance faults of wind turbine have been
studied through theoretical analysis and experimental
simulation. A non-grid-connected wind turbine condition
monitoring system has been developed, and a test platform has
been constructed, so the output power and vibration
characteristics of the test wind turbine can be measured. In the
test platform, three kinds of wind wheel unbalance faults have
been simulated on the test wind turbine. The acquired fault
signals have been processed by spectrum and time-frequency
analysis, and the faults features have been obtained. More real-
field experiment and development of a fault diagnosis system
for non-grid-connected wind turbine will be a subject for future
research activities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by National Basic Research Program of
China (973 program) (grant no. 2007CB210304).
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