Analysis of wind turbine transmission system considering bearing clearance and thermo-mechanical coupling

According to the complicated working condition and heavy load properties of wind turbine transmission system, an analysis is performed considering bearing clearance and thermo-mechanical coupling. Taking a high-speed gear pair in a MW-class wind turbine transmission system as an example, the contact and bending of the gear pair are analyzed by using FEM (Finite Element Method). The analysis results are given. The results showed that the bearing clearance and thermo-mechanical coupling has a great influence on the performance of the wind turbine transmission system, and the influence on bearing clearance and thermo-mechanical coupling can not be neglected when analysis is done for wind turbine transmission system.

I. Introduction

The bearing clearance and thermo-mechanical coupling are mostly assumed to be no any effects to the performance of the gear transmission in traditional analysis, whereas seldom involves the research relating to the actual bearing clearance and thermo-mechanical coupling [1], [2].