A Six Steps Approach to Set up a Measurement Campaign to Validate or Improve the Wind Turbine Component Model

The reliability of mechanical components of wind turbines needs to be improved. In the PROTEST project, a pre-normative project, complementary procedures are developed to improve the specification of the design loads at the interfaces where the mechanical components (pitch and yaw system as well as the drive train) are attached to the wind turbine. This has resulted in a new approach of how to set up and use the prototype measurement campaign. This new approach contains six steps: 1. identify failure modes, 2. design a model, 3. run the load cases, 4. identify input and output certainty, 5. set-up a measurement campaign and 6. process the results to check or improve the models. The main focus of this approach is to enable validation and improvements of the model and its input parameters using a prototype measurement campaign. A flexible approach seems to be essential, as it is unlikely that a strict standard can be created for these components that show several different build-ups and for which very different models are often used. The suggested approach is illustrated using the friction of the pitch bearing as an example.