Experimental assessment and validation of an oil ferrous wear debris sensors family for wind turbine gearboxes

Abstract

[EN] Purpose - The purpose of this study was to perform a complete experimental assessment of a family of oil ferrous wear debris sensor is performed. The family comprised the original sensor and its re-engineered evolution, which is capable of detecting both amount and size of wear debris particles trapped by the sensor and some predefined oil condition properties. Design/methodology/approach ¿ In this work, the first step was to perform a design of experiments for the sensor validation. A specially defined test rig was implemented, and different ferrous wear debris was collected. For each sensor, two different tests were performed. The first test was called a ¿void test¿, where quantified amounts of debris were collided with the sensor without oil. The second one was a dynamic test, where the sensor was installed in the test rig and different amounts of wear debris were added at a constant rate. In addition, specific tests related with oil properties detection were studied. Findings ¿ The results show excellent correlation of the sensor output signal with the amount of wear debris and a satisfactory detection of debris size in all ranges. Also, the dynamic test presented adequate representativeness, and sensors performed well in this scenario. Practical implications ¿ This paper shows the practical implementation of this type of sensor and the usual detection range and rate of detection for different debris size and quantities. Originality/value ¿ This work has a great utility for maintenance managers and equipment designers to fully understand the potential of this type of sensor and its suitability for the application required.