Wind Turbine Drivetrain Reliability and Wind Plant Operations and Maintenance Research and Development Opportunities

Keller, Jonathan; Sheng, Shuangwen; Guo, Yi; Gould, Benjamin; Greco, Aaron

doi:10.2172/1822823

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…A Drivetrain Reliability Collaborative (DRC) was initiated by the Department of Energy (DOE) to examine why drivetrains on wind turbines are not lasting the expected design life of 20 years. In a report 11 from NREL, it was indicated that the field life of most main shaft bearings is less than 6 years. Additionally, it was indicated that the cost to replace main shaft bearings ranges from $150k to $300k.…”

Section: Fatigue Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Description of an HAWT hub enabling teetering about two out‐of‐plane axes with modeling showing significant reductions in cyclic behavior and fatigue due to turbulence and wind shear

Ramsland¹

2023

Wind Energy

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A three‐bladed, dual‐axis teetering hub (3T) has been developed and compared to a three‐bladed rigid hub (3R) using computer modeling. Both hubs were fitted to a hypothetical 5‐MW offshore wind turbine mounted on an offshore floating platform. Cyclic analysis showed the 3T hub significantly reduced the impact of wind shear on the blades and virtually eliminated the impact of both turbulence and wind shear on the main shaft bearing and yaw bearing. Lifetime fatigue studies for the two hubs were performed using a rainflow‐counting program at various levels of turbulence and wind shear. Studies showed the significant reductions in cyclic variation provided by the 3T hub resulted in significant reductions in lifetime fatigue in comparison to the 3R hub. Simulations with the 3T hub showed an increase in turbulence caused a very small increase in blade fatigue but no increase in fatigue for the main shaft bearing and yaw bearing. In contrast, fatigue studies with the 3R hub showed an increase in turbulence caused significant damage to the blades and a combined increase in turbulence and wind shear caused extremely significant damage to the blades. This paper introduces a recently patented hub design that is superior to the ball‐and‐socket design described in a prior paper by this author.

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Section: Fatigue Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Description of an HAWT hub enabling teetering about two out‐of‐plane axes with modeling showing significant reductions in cyclic behavior and fatigue due to turbulence and wind shear

Ramsland¹

2023

Wind Energy

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“…Recently, there has been an increasing level of industry interest in pitch bearing reliability (Shapiro 2017;Keller et al 2021). Some populations demonstrate a 12% failure rate in 20 years (Hornemann 2019).…”

Section: Pitch Bearing Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rating of a Pitch Bearing for a 1.5-Megawatt Wind Turbine

Keller

Guo

2022

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“…And roughly half of this is due to WT operations and maintenance (O&M) 16,17 . The potential LCOE cost reduction by addressing O&M costs is estimated to be up to 40% for offshore WTs 18 . According to Dao et al, 19 the gearbox does not fail often; however, it causes the highest downtime, along with blades and hub, in both onshore and offshore WTs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the definition and effect of optimum gear microgeometry modifications for the gearbox of an offshore 10‐MW wind turbine

et al. 2023

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This work develops an optimization algorithm for the definition of gear microgeometry modifications (MGM) on a gearbox belonging to an offshore 10-MW wind turbine. Subsequently, the impact of the gear microgeometry on the performance of gears and bearings is quantified: First, under rated load conditions and, second, accounting for the environmental conditions to estimate the long-term damage. To fulfil this task, a high-fidelity numerical model of the drivetrain is used, which meets the design requirements of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) 10-MW reference offshore wind turbine. The optimization achieves a uniform distribution of the contact stress along the tooth flank, shifts its maximum value to the central position, and eliminates edge contact. These enhancements increase the gear safety factors.Nevertheless, the most significant improvement concerns planetary bearings, for which optimum gear MGM achieve a homogeneous share of the load among bearings. Moreover, deviations of the microgeometry with respect to the defined optimum are also addressed. In gears, lead slope deviations are counteracted by crowning modifications to restrain the increase of the load offset. Concerning planetary bearings, slope deviations can be beneficial or detrimental depending on whether they overload downwind or upwind planetary bearings, respectively. Finally, accumulated damage to planetary bearings after 20 years of service is assessed.Before MGM, results predict a premature failure of planetary bearings, while optimum MGM extend their predicted life above 20 years by achieving a reduction of the maximum accumulated fatigue damage by a factor of 4.4.

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Wind Turbine Drivetrain Reliability and Wind Plant Operations and Maintenance Research and Development Opportunities

Cited by 6 publications

References 72 publications

Description of an HAWT hub enabling teetering about two out‐of‐plane axes with modeling showing significant reductions in cyclic behavior and fatigue due to turbulence and wind shear

Description of an HAWT hub enabling teetering about two out‐of‐plane axes with modeling showing significant reductions in cyclic behavior and fatigue due to turbulence and wind shear

Rating of a Pitch Bearing for a 1.5-Megawatt Wind Turbine

On the definition and effect of optimum gear microgeometry modifications for the gearbox of an offshore 10‐MW wind turbine

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