REVISION OF THE CONDITION BASED MONITORING TECHNIQUES OF THE PITCH BEARINGS FROM WIND TURBINES

Abstract

The continuous increase of energetic consumption worldwide has been a necessity for the development of human society, which is cover historically with fossil fuels. The use and negative contribution of fossil fuels to the planet have been evident with the climate change phenomenon. This has caused the awareness of society and institutions, which understand the unfeasibility of the electricity generation by conventional means (fossil fuels) in the medium and long term. For this reason, sustainable and efficient energy sources are becoming a fundamental objective at present. Wind power is one of these options since it has economically viable costs. A large part of the costs associated with offshore wind turbines is the operation and maintenance activities, which can be improved. A strategy is the monitoring of the condition, which allows extending the useful life of the components of the wind turbine. Within the components present in a wind turbine, the pitch bearings are one of the critical elements because of their frequent failure, along with the time and logistics involved in their replacement. These issues encourage the realization of the present revision of the techniques used in condition monitoring. The identification of these topics allows the visualization and proposition of future lines of research. Key words: monitoring, wind turbine, pitch bearing, vibration, acoustic emission.