Measurement system for wind turbines noises assessment based on LabVIEW

An automatic measurement platform based on powerful LabVIEW is designed and implemented for noise assessment of Wind Turbine Generator Systems (WTGS). The measurement method of IEC 61400-11 standard is set-up in order to ensure the consistency and accuracy of noises assessment. Firstly, the techniques of measuring wind speed, calculating apparent sound power at integer wind speed, identifying tonality and audibility at integer wind speed recommended in IEC 61400-11, are described briefly. And then, the measurement system is designed using LabVIEW development system with one PCMCIA card and one USB card inserted into a laptop. The whole system architecture with the hardware configures and software function modules, is introduced in detail. Finally, this system is applied to do noises assessing for GOLDWIND 77/1500 wind turbine and the results have been recognized by the authoritative agency of MEASNET. Benefiting from the module design of sub-virtual instrument in LabVIEW, this system has the characteristics of perfect functions, friendly using interface, high integration, low cost and great practicality. It has wide foreground for noises assessment of WIGS. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.