Power mapping : a wind turbine performance indicator in population-based structural health monitoring

Population-based structural health monitoring (PBSHM) aims to assess the health condition of individuals in a population of structures, such that the knowledge obtained from one or more individuals may be used to infer the condition of others in the population. A key challenge to address in PBSHM is understanding, quantifying and accounting for the variations in structural response across a population due to benign and non-benign causes. Nominally identical wind turbines in the same farm may perform in various ways not only because of the potential difference in health states, but also due to environmental and operational variations. This paper will introduce a data-based mapping method that aims to build a performance indicator for all turbines in a farm, taking into account the wind-induced variation. A case study from an operating wind farm will be given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.