Sensitivity Analysis on Optimal Preventive Maintenance Policies for the Electrical Control System of Offshore Wind Turbine

For offshore wind turbines (OWTs), the electrical control system (ECS) is identified as one of the critical components with a relatively high failure rate. To delve into the aging process of this system and determine the optimal preventive maintenance (PM) interval, this study develops an aging model based on a non-homogeneous continuous-time Markov process (NHCTMP). The model segments the entire lifecycle of the ECS into five distinct states, to simulate the behavior and performance degradation across various stages of usage. The Chapman-Kolmogorov’s (C-K) forward equation is solved to determine the reliability of each state. Many factors are considered including the effective age and the cost of different operation and maintenance (O&M) activities. A numerical example is presented to verify our results. Moreover, we assessed the impact of data accuracy through a sensitivity analysis on key parameters, the results show that the shape parameter has a significant impact on the PM scheme.