a closed-form technique for the reliability and risk assessment of wind turbine systems封闭的技术可靠性和风力涡轮机系统的风险评估.pdfVIP

Energies 2012, 5, 1734-1750; doi:10.3390/en5061734 OPEN ACCESS energies ISSN 1996-1073 /journal/energies Article A Closed-Form Technique for the Reliability and Risk Assessment of Wind Turbine Systems Akwasi F. Mensah * and Leonardo Dueñas-Osorio Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA; E-Mail: Leonardo.duenas-osorio@ * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: afm3@; Tel.: +1-713-348-5292; Fax: +1-713-348-5268. Received: 5 April 2012; in revised form: 25 May 2012 / Accepted: 29 May 2012 / Published: 4 June 2012 Abstract: This paper proposes a closed-form method to evaluate wind turbine system reliability and associated failure consequences. Monte Carlo simulation, a widely used approach for system reliability assessment, usually requires large numbers of computational experiments, while existing analytical methods are limited to simple system event configurations with a focus on average values of reliability metrics. By analyzing a wind turbine system and its components in a combinatorial yet computationally efficient form, the proposed approach provides an entire probability distribution of system failure that contains all possible configurations of component failure and survival events. The approach is also capable of handling unique component attributes such as downtime and repair cost needed for risk estimations, and enables sens