The project DPW-Design is a joint project between DLR and Fraunhofer, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). The design project will take 6 months from 2013 to 2014.
As a major German research institution, DLR engages in the construction and utilization of the research infrastructure for the wind energy systems in Germany and Europe. This objective is carried out under the title “DLR Platform for Research In Wind” (DLR ProWind). Amongst others, the following partners are involved: University of Oldenburg, Hannover and Bremen as well as Fraunhofer Institut for Wind Energy (IWES). The main goals are to provide one experimental plant, one virtual plant and several demonstration plants, equipped extensively with technologically updated systems for research purposes.
To manage all necessary efforts, DLR ProWind is divided into four projects: DeveloProWind, Design experimental plant, Virtual Plant and DPW-Design. The need of project DPW-Design is to complete the entire instrumentation of all research plants and to ensure their experimental operation. Hence, an extensive instrumentation is essential to acquire all data of the rotor, the plant in general and the environment. Thus, for collecting the required data a baseline acquisition unit is necessary. On the other hand, for research purposes the operation of the plant requires the development of an additional control system. Furthermore, in order to be connected with the virtual plant, the data acquisition system should provide interfaces for communication between related parts of interest.
In this project, the Department Safety Critical Systems & Systems Engineering is involved in the work packages “plant instrumentation” and “Requirements for Condition Monitoring System”. The main task is to define concepts and requirements for the instrumentation of the wind energy system for future research in the domain of condition monitoring of drive trains in wind turbines.
Reference: [1] S. Sheng and P. Veers, “Wind Turbine Drivetrain Condition Monitoring – An Overview,” System Health Conference, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 2011.