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Prognostic Health Management techniques for intelligent condition

monitoring of offshore renewable generation assets

Conference Paper · January 2013

DOI: 10.1049/cp.2013.1732

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PROGNOSTIC HEALTH MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES FOR
INTELLIGENT CONDITION MONITORING OF OFFSHORE
RENEWABLE GENERATION ASSETS
D.S. Herd, Dr D. Flynn
*Institue of Sensors, Signals & Systems, MIcroSystems Engineering Centre (MISEC), School of Engineering & Physical
Sciences,
Heriot-Watt University, EH14 4AS, Edinburgh Scotland. E:- dsh4@hw.ac.uk
Keywords: Condition Monitoring, Sensors, Prognostics,
Health Management.
Abstract
The application of Prognostic Health Management (PHM)
methods offer the potential of improved reliability in the
maintenance of large, remote and complex assets ensuring
they continue to achieve optimal performance throughout
their designed lifetime. This paper reviews the current state-
of-the-art in condition monitoring for the offshore renewable
energy sector to highlight the current capabilities and
limitations. Based upon this review and an examination of
PHM case studies, the design and function of PHM systems
for offshore renewable industry assets will be presented.
1 Introduction
The need for Prognostic Health Management systems in our
industrial sectors has never been greater. The current global
economic crisis has placed increased emphasis on the value
i.e. operating life, companies need to extract from their
existing asset base. A well designed PHM monitoring system
provides the asset manager, the end user, with accurate
remaining useful life (RUL) predictions of the asset, thereby,
better informing operation and maintenance programs.
The increasing demand for intelligent monitoring capabilities
that not only predict remaining life of components but also
capture within a holistic monitoring structure the
interdependencies between subsystems, is significant in the
offshore renewable energy industry. With growing global
investment in wind, wave and tidal stream renewable
generation technologies that are typically located in harsh and
remote locations, the security of supply for nations,
attainment of renewable obligation targets and the economic
viability of these schemes are heavily dependent on the next
generation of intelligent asset management. For example, the
UK will invest over £17 Billion in offshore wind, with a
projected £267 Million dedicated to maintenance alone[1].
PHM has the potential to make savings within this
maintenance budget and also to generate additional revenue
from increased capacity factor. It should be noted that the
£267 million budget, is based on planned maintenance and
does not account for unforeseen failures.
The aim of this paper is to review the current state of the art
in Condition Monitoring (CM) and PHM systems. The paper
denotes applications which could benefit from the installation
of a PHM system as the first form of asset monitoring or as an
extension to CM systems already employed. The focus of this
paper is to investigate the question of, can future holistic
prognostic health monitoring systems, ensure the reliability of
the offshore renewable energy infrastructure?
The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 provides
the reader with a background of CM and its application to the
renewable generation industry. Section 3 details the overall
general construction of a PHM system. Sections 4, 5 and 6
present a definition of PHM, describe PHM approaches and
present case studies of PHM systems to assets relevant to the
offshore renewable generation industry, and finally, section 7
summaries the primary findings and conclusions.
2 Review of Condition Monitoring
There are several approaches to CM and machine
maintenance. The first is that of corrective maintenance. This
is where a machine is run until failure. This form of
maintenance is sufficient when dealing with new equipment
as fewer failures are expected. This form of maintenance has
no initial capital cost and at no point can an asset be over
maintained which makes it a very attractive maintenance
approach for simpler systems where complex maintenance
plans cannot be afforded. The next level of maintenance is
preventative. This method can be seen as a slightly more
complex system where downtime is undesirable for long
periods. This method provides reassurance that catastrophic
failures will be less likely and can ensure that critical
components can be stored to avoid lengthy downtime due to
long lead-times from suppliers. The final maintenance
method, condition-based maintenance, is discussed widely in
the following sections of the paper. This maintenance plan is
the most effective in reducing maintenance costs and failure
downtime. This can be seen as the most comprehensive
approach in complex systems, ensuring that failures are
eliminated where possible and any downtime can be planned
to ensure the minimum of disruption to production.
3 Design of Condition Monitoring System
Traditionally CM systems have a generic design structure
irrespective of industrial application shown in Figure 1. The
system primarily uses sensors fixed to the asset as the main
data source, but can allow for additional data to be harvested
from portable instrumentation. Sensor data is fed into a data
acquisition unit, where the data can be stored. The control
system offers the user the ability to set threshold limits and
setup alarms if a fault is detected through data analysis.
Figure 1: Condition Monitoring System Design
The following section presents a case study of CM systems in
the renewable generation industry.
3.1 Case Study
The paper discussed herein, “Survey of Commercially
Available Condition Monitoring Systems for Wind Turbines”,
provides a detailed study of CM systems available at the time
of writing.[2] The paper discuses several systems throughout,
some of which are based on fibre optic and oil analysis, with
the majority being based on vibrational analysis. The paper
outlines many reasons why CM systems are required in the
wind turbine industry and emphasises the need for further
development of more intelligent complex systems i.e.
Prognostic Health Management systems.
The paper suggests the need for interdependencies between
individual CM systems within a wind turbine application.
The utilisation of bespoke proprietary solutions does not
provide the centralised holistic monitoring desired by today’s
remote asset management applications.
The following sections of this paper discuss PHM systems
followed by examples of its application.
4 Prognostic Health Management
Designed correctly, intelligent asset management based on
PHM can ensure the reliability of the offshore renewable
energy infrastructure. Additional features such as built in self-
test can be implemented to ensure the diagnostic system itself
is operating correctly, maintaining the highest levels of
reliability and accuracy in the monitoring system.
In order to progress the state of the art in CM to a prognostic
and holistic sensor system, there needs to be some
developments with respect to the monitoring hardware and
data interpretation. Firstly, the system requires the sensors to
have greater sensitivity to detect the earliest indicators of
failure modes in real time. Of equal importance is their
reliability. To overcome the issues of sensor failure and drift
associated with many CM systems, this can be achieved via
integrated self-test or online health monitoring.[3]
A PHM system has a slightly more complex monitoring and
assessment functionality compared to that of traditional CM
system. However, they can be tailored in terms of their
resolution dependent on the requirements of the application
e.g. RUL based on months/weeks, as opposed to minutes. [4]
The main difference in the system is the amount of feedback
which trains and updates the system with new data to help
diagnose faults and give a real-time status of the current
health of the system. Figure 2 below displays a fusion based
PHM approach utilising data and physics of failure methods
to predict remaining useful life of an asset.
Figure 2: Prognostic Health Management Design[5]
PHM systems will use sensors as the main data source, akin
to a traditional CM system. Sensor data can be analysed in a
real time manner in a centralised system or through the
application of front end intelligence, e.g. algorithms within a
microcontroller/FPGA.
Sensor data accuracy is a critical factor in any monitoring
system so a means of ensuring the accuracy of the sensor data
is to embed a form of self-test. Self-test can be carried out in a
number of ways. The most common is through the use of
redundant sensors. By using more than one sensor, the
multiple recorded values can be compared and any
discrepancy can indicate that one of the sensor s is faulty.
This technique is more costly due to additional hardware and
it is only effective in fault diagnosis if more than two of the
same sensors are being used.
Another alternative for built in self-test is to use the
knowledge base of the prognostic sensor system to identify
sensor faults. The system holds a great deal of knowledge
about healthy baseline conditions of the asset being monitored
by the sensor as well as surrounding components which may
affect the sensor reading. Using the systems artificial
intelligence (AI), for example through neural networks, the
system will be able to determine if the reading is a true fault
or whether the reading is due to a faulty sensor or other
condition.
With respect to historical database and standards, as per
Figure 2, manufacturer data sheets as well as historic failure
data will be incorporated. Manufacturer data provides vital
environmental characteristics and safe operating parameters.
This data is of particular importance in an offshore
environment, to ensure individual components operate
correctly due to the harsh conditions and times of extreme
loading during the asset operation. Any previous failure data
and healthy baseline condition data would also be included to
ensure the highest level of monitoring sensitivity.
5 Prognostic Health Management Approaches
When deciding the most effective form of monitoring or
indeed the correct PHM approach to be used, it is
recommended that Failure Mode, Mechanism, and Effect
Analysis is carried out (FMMEA).[6] FMMEA provides
valuable information about how a fault may occur and what
the consequences on the system as a whole will be. By using
this type of analysis a system designer can insure that the
correct sensors are used to detect the fault at the earliest stage.
It also means that the appropriate PHM approach can be used,
reducing the likelihood of over engineering a solution.
The approaches used for prognostics can be divided in three
groups; model based, data-driven and fusion based. Model
based approaches use mathematical data and algorithms to
predict the fault propagation or deterioration within the
system, i.e. physics of failure model. The physics of failure
(PoF) model uses load conditions along with environmental
monitoring to predict the degradation and indeed the total
failure of a component or system. This type of model is
expensive in monetary terms as well as personnel time, but is
extremely comprehensive and can be very accurate. [7]
Data driven models are a much cheaper alternative to model
based approaches. This type of approach does not require
previous data in order to start monitoring, but may require
human intervention at times to increase accuracy. There are
two main network types widely used in prognostics, Bayesian
and Neural Networks.
Bayesian networks usually consist of two separate networks.
The first is used for fault detection and the second for fault
isolation. The detection network uses the sensor data fusion
technique to identify if the sensor reading of a specific sensor
is within a reasonable range of the other sensors related to it.
This can be thought of as AI as the system has to “reason”
whether the value is acceptable or not.
The second network is used to isolate the faulty sensor with
all other perceptible faulty sensors within the system. This
form of networking is extremely beneficial, especially in a
new system, as the network does not require prior knowledge
to operate. [8]
Neural networks are a powerful tool when dealing with large
amounts of data. When monitoring an asset the data usually
depicts the healthy baseline and therefore can be discounted
during the data analysis. By discounting the repetitive data the
impending failure or total failure data can be analysed more
quickly and directly [9]
Fusion based PHM systems utilise both data and PoF as
indicated in Figure 2. This is the process of combing data
from sensors; to generate a more descript and real-time
overview of a system to identify incipient faults. The fusion
based approach increases the probability of fault detection
through its increased data resource.
6 Case Study
An extensive study of 1500 wind turbines by ISET found
varying reliability across mechanical and electrical system
with, in general, more faults in electrical systems than
mechanical. At present many wind turbine developers include
redundancy in their power electronics due to the issues
associated with their reliability. However, it has been proven
that PHM can be utilised to predict the RUL of power
electronic modules under a variety of real load
conditions[10].
Within this work it is demonstrated that a detailed FMEA can
be used, along with standard consumer electronics, to monitor
and therefore predict the RUL of the IGBT under test. A
fusion based approach is used to detect failure of solder
interconnects within power electronic circuits, one of the
most common failures in such systems. It has been widely
accepted by the offshore industry that electronic components
within systems are the most susceptible to faults due the harsh
ever changing environmental conditions [11]. As offshore
project move further away from land to increase profitability,
so too will the severity of the conditions, thus increasing
probability of failure. The answer at present is to reduce
complex subsystems within power generation assets, to more
rugged mechanical systems, but these technologies do not
yield as much energy as more complex electronic alternatives
would, so a way of monitoring these systems in a reliable real
time manner is required.
Another example of PHM being used to enable the offshore
renewable generation industry is the work being led at Heriot-
Watt University on subsea cable condition monitoring [12].
The predominant failures in subsea power cables are
environmental factors. For example, abrasive wear, corrosion
and third party impacts. Utilising a combination of fusion
based prognostics, RUL of subsea cables can be predicted
based on the specific environmental conditions in each
deployment. Customised off the shelf technology is used to
monitor the displacement and shock impacts of the subsea
cable and via front end data processing this information is
sent to shore to update the RUL estimation of the subsea
power cable. A diagram indicating the primary subsystems of
the retrofit monitoring system are illustrated in Figure 3.
 PCB
Shock sensor
Cable motion
AHRS Microcontroller
Subsea
communications
modem
Hardwired Hardwired
interface 1 interface 2
Battery
Figure 3: Retrofit Condition Monitoring System
Figure 4: Damaged Subsea Cable
Shown in Figure 4 above, is a damaged subsea cable. This
method of monitoring replaces periodoic inspection via ROV
or divers, and a reactive based maintenance procedure.
7 Conclusions
The current state of the art CM system typically provides
detailed bespoke monitoring for specific subsystems. The
issues that this presents are; complex data interpretation, no
inclusion of interdependent sub-systems, large data sets, and
issues relating to false alarms. The wind turbine industry is
leading the renewable energy sector in CM, yet there is a
large body of work highlighting the lack of consensus within
the industry on how to develop effective condition monitoring
of assets. Offshore renewable energy assets require improved
detail with respect to RUL estimations of sub-systems within
a holistic monitoring approach. Appropriate design of
centralised decision support systems based on prognostics and
health management, will enable improvements in asset
utilisation and reduction in operational costs.
The future intelligent asset monitoring systems based on
PHM will need to be tailored to end user requirements, to
ensure that data is effectively transformed into information.
The ability to embedded front end sensor intelligence into
proven microelectronic technologies means that
communication networks and subsea assets with restricted
bandwidth can also benefit from advanced PHM. The
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increase in systems (MEMS) technology will see sensor chips
with built in FPGA’s and memory to allow processing to be
carried out on chip. This increased capability will reduce the
complexity of the central processing unit and reduce overall
system cost through reduction of central resources.
Air
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