Assessment and Validation of Oil Sensor Systems for On-line Oil Condition Monitoring of Wind Turbine Gearboxes

The gearbox oil and the wind turbine gearbox condition are correlated. The oil can give the wind turbine operator the necessary information to plan maintenance and avoid costly repairs. Therefore, a test bench that can reproduce the gearbox operating conditions would be necessary to test oil-sensors. This paper presents a first testing approach using a Highly Accelerated Life Test / Highly Accelerated Stress Screening test chamber. It allows assessing the performance of oil properties sensors under extreme ambient temperature and vibration levels, based on measurements from a wind turbine gearbox. Results from a test on an oil properties sensor are presented and discussed.