Multibody Dynamic Analysis of a Wind Turbine Drivetrain in Consideration of the Shaft Bending Effect and a Variable Gear Mesh Including Eccentricity and Nacelle Movement

Abstract

Due to the energy crisis and global warming issues, the wind energy is becoming one of the most attractive renewable energy resources in the world. The drivetrains in the wind turbine tend to fail more prematurely than those in any other applications. Gearbox is the subsystem that causes the most downtime for the wind turbines. In the previous research, only the torsional flexibility of the shaft was considered in the drivetrain model. However, because the shaft is longer than other parts, and components connected by the shaft affect each other via shaft bending, the flexibility of the shaft cannot be ignored. In this study, a spherical joint that consists of three rotational springs was used to define the shaft bending. This shaft bending will affect the drivetrain rotation, the translational motion and the gear mesh contact force. Additionally, the eccentricity and the nacelle movement are analyzed due to the coupled motion. In this paper, a mathematical model of the drivetrain is proposed, which is a three-dimensional dynamic model that includes flexible bearings, a gear mesh model, shaft flexibility, eccentricity, and nacelle movement. The equation of motion of the drivetrain is derived using Lagrange's equation. The governing equation is solved numerically via direct numerical integration. The dynamic responses of the system and contact forces between the gear tooth in the time and frequency domains are calculated numerically. The study shows that this dynamic model of the drivetrain will be highly useful for subsequent studies on the wind turbine condition monitoring.

Archive of Mechanical Engineering

“…As presented in Fig. 2, the applied wind turbine drive train model includes the rotor, the carrier, the planetary stage, the parallel stages and the generator [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Each component was considered a rigid body.…”

Fractal‐based dynamic response of a pair of spur gears considering microscopic surface morphology

“…Subsequently, stiffness is calculated by corresponding potential energy. To simplify the calculation, a common method is to fit the meshing stiffness by Fourier series 20,21 where is the average meshing stiffness, which is always set as a suitable constant. is the first‐order harmonic component of the stiffness and stands for the variant with time, is the initial phase.…”

Dynamic behavior analysis method for the normal and faulty drivetrain of wind turbine under multi‐working conditions

“…Li et al 5 established an integrated drivetrain coupling analysis model that showed that the non‐torque loads aggravate the nonuniform load sharing between planet gears, and the non‐torque loads enlarge the bearing dynamic supporting forces. Park et al 6 analyzed the multibody dynamics of the drivetrain considering the shaft bending effect and a variable gear mesh, and pointed out that the planetary gear stages are more sensitive to shaft bending and eccentricity. Yang et al 7 analyzed the nonlinear dynamic response of cyclic load and random wind load on the drivetrain, proposed that the planetary gear can get rid of chaos and enter into stable periodic motion by changing the stiffness ratio properly.…”