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Wind Turbine Bearing FE Analysis
There are specific difficulties for wind turbine pitch and yaw bearing design and analysis due to their large size and complex and flexible structure. Large numbers of rolling elements contacting raceways, and bolts connecting bearing to hub and blade also cause difficulties in design. Romax Contact Elements can overcome many of the disadvantages of a conventional FE approach saving time and cost. Romax plug-ins for FEA packages such as ANSYS, allow roller or ball contacts to be modelled in unrefined structural meshes providing accurate stiffness calculations with minimal modelling and analysis time.
Capabilities
Benefits
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Full 3D model without assumption and simplification
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Accurate and efficient contact stiffness calculation
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Full flexibility of elements, raceway and structures
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Fast analysis times and robust convergences
Bearing Analysis for Certification
Wind turbine gearbox applications have to be designed and tested according to strict standards to ensure the long reliability requirements are maintained. Germanischer Lloyd Wind Energy (GL Wind) is an internationally operating certification body for wind turbines which assesses the suitability of gearbox designs before they can be used in service. Design and selection of the bearings is of prime importance in wind turbine gearboxes, Romax was asked to provide durability calculations for a bearing manufacturer against specified duty cycle and extreme loads cases in order to pass the required certification.
Romax provided the facility to produce reports with durability results needed to satisfy guidelines produced by GL, with analysis for wind turbine gearboxes easily be carried out in RomaxDesigner. The software allowed modelling of the detailed shaft geometry, complex planetary gear systems, spline connections, Finite Element housing models and internal bearing details.
Benefits
The GL certification reports for bearing performance provided by Romax have allowed the supplier to successfully use their products in wind turbine applications. With extensive experience in this area, Romax now offers this type of service to gearbox and bearing manufacturers along with providing consultancy for the detailed design issues involved with these large size bearings.
Capabilities
- Evaluate and select bearings using load duration distributions (LDD) and extreme loads
- Calculate rating life according to ISO 281 and DIN ISO 281 Supplement 4
- Investigate and optimise pre-load, clearances, misalignment, bearing internal geometry and lubrication conditions
- Use detailed results such as static safety factors, bearing raceway stress contours and rolling element load sharing to validate bearing selection
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