Survey of workload factors for technicians in wind turbine maintenance tasks: A pilot study

The purpose of this study was to survey the perceived workload on technicians during maintenance tasks on wind turbines. Categories of condition influencing factors including human, task, system, environment, human-computer interface, and mental workload were designed into a subjective questionnaire survey. Factors were collected, analyzed and evaluated from previous studies or field interviews. To discover the critical items, fuzzy logic and fuzzy inference system were used to describe the degree of environment condition, degree of risk, and degree of effect on human body, for each item. Twenty-eight items were classified into three Influence Levels: Level 1 (low impact), Level 2 (intermediate impact), and Level 3 (critical impact). Result revealed that technicians ranked ‘effort’ as the number one contributing factor to workload with ‘physical demand’ and ‘mental demand’ as other important factors. In addition, contributing factors recognized by technicians working, classified as critical impact (Level 3) were (1) temperature and humidity variability in the wind tower (2) dangerous workplace, and (3) inconvenient workplace. The results not only provide reference data for wind turbine structures, but will also provide information to better prevent or reduce incidents or accidents on wind farms.