News

The Belix® gear system can be integrated in hybrid drive – medium speed gearboxes in Wind turbines and adds, improved performance together with increased reliability for the latest developed architectures.

All induced axial forces at the generator shaft in the gearbox will be eliminated and the bearing arrangements for the generator shaft don’t need to handle any thrust forces.

Bearing arrangements in Belix® integrated gearboxes can easily be build lighter and more rigid for prolonged bearing life and better reliability.

The output/generator shaft and there’s bearings are significantly higher loaded in a medium speed gearbox vs. the HS-shaft and there’s berings in a high speed gearbox at comparable power rating.

To know more about Belix® performance improvements – contact us.

Licenses is now available:

Thanks’ all of you – for the great respond of our Belix® technology.

We are surprised how well the Belix® gear system has been received by transmission manufacturers as well as other gearbox users. The technology was launched in detail at the EWEA fair in Copenhagen (mid April) to international manufacturers and users. Since then, we have notice a world-wide increasing interest for the technology.

The licenses for the technology and for the trade name Belix® is now commercial available – please contact our sales for further information.

27.03.12 »

Visiting the EWEA 2012 meeting in Copenhagen:

We will be attending the EWEA meeting* in Copenhagen on April 16 ‐ 18 and look forward to establishing further contacts with representatives from the wind energy industry.

Please feel free to get in touch to setup a meeting with us in Copenhagen.

* EWEA 2012 Annual Event at Bella Center, Copenhagen, Denmark

09.01.12 »

Urgent need, of new windmill transmission technology:

Expensive and lengthy downtime caused by breakdown of gearboxes is a widely known problem with today's wind turbines. The below mentioned reports from NREL and from Elforsk are only two of many sources to facts about these problems.

NREL report Gearbox Reliability Collaboration (June 2011)

An industrial collaboration projects to improve the reliability of wind turbine gearboxes has been ongoing since 2004. The project, which today involves several international industries and experts, has grown over the years. It is known as GRC ("Gearbox Reliability Collaboration") and coordinated by the American NREL ("National Renewable Energy Laboratory"). NREL is the principal research laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. 

GRC Recently published a report that confirms and illustrates the well-known and yet unsolved problems limiting the service life for wind turbine gearboxes.

The full NREL report may be downloaded here:

ELFORSK report Gearbox failures on land based Wind Turbines (March 2011)

(Report V-315: ”Elforsk rapport 10:50, Växellådshaverier på landbaserade vindkraftverk, Andreas Horste och Idriss El-Thalji”)

This report presents the result of a pre-study made on gearbox failures in onshore wind turbines in Sweden. The aim of the report is to investigate why the lifetime of the gearboxes is so short and what kind of actions the owner can perform to extend the lifetime. The working method is based on collecting experience, data and reports from different wind power operators. An analysis of the collected material is presented and discussed in this report. Below are some extracts from this report:

”The gearbox of a wind turbine is a key component that can cause lengthy downtime at breakdown. It is also a very costly operation to replace a broken gearbox with a new one. The crane for lifting up and down a gear box will cost several thousand SEK per hour and lifting can only occur in favorable wind speeds. In addition, the crane usually has a very high establishment cost, which can vary between 100,000 and 1 million SEK depending on the location and environment of the turbine.”

”To obtain the whole picture of the issue of wind turbine gearboxes all reports from the Swedish follow-up operation, Vindstat, have been analyzed and compiled. A deeper investigation has been made on the basis of information from interviews, visits, failure and service reports and data from wind power operators.”

”The result shows that the gearbox design fails to take all the internal dynamic forces into consideration…”

”The design is of fundamental importance and the foundation of a reliable gearbox. Overload occurs due to faulty construction and design of the gearbox. This creates problems with bent shafts and overloaded bearings, contaminating the oil. It does not matter how good the lubrication system is as long as new wear particles are induced due to poor design.”

”The pre-study shows an experience-based lifetime for current gearboxes of 8-10 years.

Vulnerable parts in the gearbox, for example bearings to the high speed shaft, should be controlled and replaced earlier because of the wear situation. In a lifetime calculation the purchase of a new gearbox or repair of the existing one should be considered before signing a contract with the wind turbine supplier.”

”There must be feedback cooperation between the owner and supplier to optimize the current gearbox design.” 

The full ELFORSK report (in Swedish) and summary in English may be downloaded here:

http://www.elforsk.se/Rapporter/?rid=10_50_  

Choose Country:

AutoInvent Transip AB © 2012