Drivetrains in wind power installations detail page

The rapid developments in wind turbines should not mislead us to overlook the fact that often in turbines, particularly of high performance categories, technical faults and even damages occur in various elements of the drivetrains (gears, couplings and bearings), which in drivetrains of comparable size in other industries or branches of industry (e.g. heavy rolling mill drives) have so far been unknown. The main reason for this, on the one hand, lies in the fact that the basic support structure of a wind turbine consisting of tower and nacelle are very elastic and in combination with the rotor presents an extremely occilation-susceptible system. On the other hand, the quick growth of the industry in the past few years has certainly also brought forth problems, as neither an extensive operational experience with varying-sized turbines nor enough expertise, especially in the area of turbine drive trains, with the use today of large-sized components could be gathered. After the experience of the past few years, with many failures, above all in the area of drivelines, increasingly greater importance is attached to reliability. Servicing and repairs of wind turbines are as a consequence of the difficult accessibility expensive and time consuming. Downtimes resulting therefrom reduce not only the energy yield but also diminish the net return. A reliable but nonetheless economic interpretation requires an exact knowledge of the operating loads and a safe protection from overloads. With the planned offshore turbines, reliability will gain a still further importance.

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