Intelligent Open Switch Fault Detection for Power Converter in Wind Energy System

This paper proposes a simple and fast fuzzy logic-based open switch fault detection method for rotor side converter (RSC) in doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) wind turbine system. In the proposed scheme, only the mean values of the three-phase rotor currents are used to identify the power switch in which the open-circuit fault has occurred. The wind energy conversion system model developed for the design and evaluation of the proposed fault detection technique including three principal controls. the first control ensure the regulation of the electromagnetic torque and the reactive stator power (named Rotor Side Converter (RSC) control), the second regulates the DC-link voltage at the desired level (named Grid Side Converter (GSC) control) and in order to achieve maximum power at any wind speed condition a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control strategy has been used. The simulation model was developed in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The results show that the proposed fault detection scheme is able to rapidly and effectively identify open switch faults among other fault types in a time less than one period.