Not surprisingly, in the wind power industry, turbine reliability is critical. Costs of unplanned drivetrain replacements can soar especially given the difficulties imposed by their locations.
It is therefore critical to the wind farm industry to be able to forecast the system reliability of their wind turbines.
Trouble is, what is the reliability of the forecasts themselves?
Dr.-Ing. Dirk Strasser and Technical Officer of the Power Transmission Association, Dirk Stemmjack examine a new guideline for Determining the reliability of planetary / spur gear units.
Previous calculation methodology was based on a safety concept, so that the permissible loading was evaluated with the load that occurs in the form of a safety factor.
This new guideline determines the failure probability of the system element over operating time.
The essential content of this method has been transferred to IEC 61400-4.
The link here takes us through the calculations and methodology…that will hopefully provide the wind turbine industry with a more accurate framework…..