Dynamic behavior of bearings on offshore wind turbine gearboxes

Abstract

Gearbox failure is among the highest causes of downtime in a wind turbine, causing a significant loss to the wind energy sector, especially in the complex offshore environment. Quite often, the cause of these gearbox and drivetrain errors, as well as other undesired noise and vibrations issues, is premature bearing failure. Therefore, developing more efficient and reliable bearing models and simulation methods that can accurately predict the nonlinear dynamic loads already in the design phase is still crucial. Without claims of completeness, a few important items to be considered when analyzing bearings and a state-of-the art review for bearing modelling approaches (from analytical lumped parameter models to complex flexible multibody simulations) will be discussed in this chapter. Furthermore, some recent modelling developments and the problem of integrating these bearing models with similar advanced gear models into flexible multibody simulations at full-scale wind turbine drivetrain level will be addressed.