Wind Turbine Gearbox Maintenance is an essential component of getting the most out of your Wind Turbines. Monitoring and Maintenance needs to start immediately upon installation of this renewable energy source. This is because replacement transmission units cost thousands to replace (and that’s not counting money lost due to downtime!).
Bearings in Wind Turbine gearboxes, often fail long before their calculated 10 year life time. The cause of this failure is due to mixed fraction stress and vibration induced. Usually, the axial raceway cracks and extends out to branched crack systems with partial white etching cracks affecting the whole system.
Did you know that by simply monitoring a change in oil inside the gear box that issues affecting the whole system can be detected earlier? The WearSens® Sensor system measures the conductivity (k), permittivity ɛ and the temperature T. From these values, the additive consumption in oil is determined. From the temperature compensated conductivity and dielectric constant the rate of change of the oil can be calculated.
Therefore, these small temporary changes in oil, can be detected much earlier and more precisely than other measurement systems and technologies. This in turn, helps extend the operating time and minimise the downtime due to transmission damage in a Wind Turbine.
For more information on Wind Turbine Gearbox Maintenance, contact us.