Quasi-Exact-Constraint Design of Wind Turbine Gearing

Author(s):  
Hani A. Arafa ◽  
Mostafa Bedewy

In the past two decades the wind turbine industry has witnessed a considerable number of catastrophic accidents, many of which were due to gearbox failure. Ever increasing power ratings at decreased rotor speeds result in rotor torques of some million Nm. This imposes tooth loads and planet/pinion bearing loads on the order of a hundred tons within the first step-up stage. Such heavily loaded gearboxes, correctly (or rather innocently) designed according to the relevant codes, can be self-destructive. Due consideration should be given to the elastic environment in which the gears exist. Otherwise, appreciable, unsymmetrical/unequal elastic deformations in unwanted directions lead to gear tooth edge loading, in addition to overloading the bearing(s) near that edge. Designers of wind turbine gearing have in recent years identified several concepts and measures to be taken for counteracting the asymmetry of elastic deformations or mitigating their effects. In addition to giving a brief survey of such new design concepts, this paper suggests the use of selected types of curved-tooth cylindrical gears (so-called C-gears), primarily for their self-aligning capability; they allow four degrees of freedom (4-DOF), in contrast to the 3-DOF spur and helical gears and the 2-DOF double-helical gears. In addition, these gears offer a unique set of further advantages. When used in at least the most heavily loaded, first step-up stage, the design will be rendered quasi-exactly constrained; largely tolerant of misalignment due to elastic deformations, and the gearbox reliability should be improved, by design.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Edward. E. Osakue ◽  
Lucky Anetor

Background: During operation, cylindrical gearset experiences tangential, radial, and axial (helical gears only) force components that induce bending, compressive, and shear stresses at the root area of the gear tooth. Accurate estimation of the effective bending stress at the gear root is a challenge. Lewis was the first person who attempted estimating the root bending stress of spur gears with some reasonable accuracy. Various gear standards and codes in use today are modifications and improvements of the Lewis model. Objective: This research aims at revising the Lewis model by making adjustments for dynamic loads, shear stresses, axial bending stress for helical gears, and stress concentration factor that is independent on the moment arm of tangential or axial force component. Methods: An analytical approach is used in formulating a modified formula for the root bending stress in cylindrical gears starting with the original Lewis model. Intermediate expressions are developed in the process and works from many previous authors are reviewed and summarized. The new model developed is used to estimate the root bending stress in four example gearsets of 0o to 41.41o helix angle and the results are compared with those of AGMA (American Gear Manufacturers Association) formula. Results: Analysis from the examples shows that neglecting the radial compressive stress over-estimated the root bending stress by 5.27% on average. When shear stresses are ignored, the root bending stress is under-estimated by 7.49% on average. It is important, therefore, to account for both compressive and shear stresses in cylindrical gear root bending stress. When the root bending stress estimates from the revised Lewis model were compared with AGMA results, deviations in the range of -4.86% to 26.61% were observed. The stress estimates from the revised Lewis formulae were mostly higher than those of AGMA. Conclusion: The new root bending stress model uses stress concentration factors (normal and shear) that are independent of the point of load application on the gear tooth. This decoupling of stress concentration factor from the load moment arm distinguishes the new model from AGMA formula and brings bending stress analysis in gear design in line with classical bending stress analysis of straight and curved beams. The model can be used for both normal contact ratio and high contact ratio cylindrical gears.


Author(s):  
Zening Lin ◽  
Tao Jiang ◽  
Jianzhong Shang

Abstract In the past few decades, robotics research has witnessed an increasingly high interest in miniaturized, intelligent, and integrated robots. The imperative component of a robot is the actuator that determines its performance. Although traditional rigid drives such as motors and gas engines have shown great prevalence in most macroscale circumstances, the reduction of these drives to the millimeter or even lower scale results in a significant increase in manufacturing difficulty accompanied by a remarkable performance decline. Biohybrid robots driven by living cells can be a potential solution to overcome these drawbacks by benefiting from the intrinsic microscale self-assembly of living tissues and high energy efficiency, which, among other unprecedented properties, also feature flexibility, self-repair, and even multiple degrees of freedom. This paper systematically reviews the development of biohybrid robots. First, the development of biological flexible drivers is introduced while emphasizing on their advantages over traditional drivers. Second, up-to-date works regarding biohybrid robots are reviewed in detail from three aspects: biological driving sources, actuator materials, and structures with associated control methodologies. Finally, the potential future applications and major challenges of biohybrid robots are explored. Graphic abstract


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3598
Author(s):  
Sara Russo ◽  
Pasquale Contestabile ◽  
Andrea Bardazzi ◽  
Elisa Leone ◽  
Gregorio Iglesias ◽  
...  

New large-scale laboratory data are presented on a physical model of a spar buoy wind turbine with angular motion of control surfaces implemented (pitch control). The peculiarity of this type of rotating blade represents an essential aspect when studying floating offshore wind structures. Experiments were designed specifically to compare different operational environmental conditions in terms of wave steepness and wind speed. Results discussed here were derived from an analysis of only a part of the whole dataset. Consistent with recent small-scale experiments, data clearly show that the waves contributed to most of the model motions and mooring loads. A significant nonlinear behavior for sway, roll and yaw has been detected, whereas an increase in the wave period makes the wind speed less influential for surge, heave and pitch. In general, as the steepness increases, the oscillations decrease. However, higher wind speed does not mean greater platform motions. Data also indicate a significant role of the blade rotation in the turbine thrust, nacelle dynamic forces and power in six degrees of freedom. Certain pairs of wind speed-wave steepness are particularly unfavorable, since the first harmonic of the rotor (coupled to the first wave harmonic) causes the thrust force to be larger than that in more energetic sea states. The experiments suggest that the inclusion of pitch-controlled, variable-speed blades in physical (and numerical) tests on such types of structures is crucial, highlighting the importance of pitch motion as an important design factor.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162095983
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Davis ◽  
Jonathan Redshaw ◽  
Thomas Suddendorf ◽  
Mark Nielsen ◽  
Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini ◽  
...  

Neonatal imitation is a cornerstone in many theoretical accounts of human development and social behavior, yet its existence has been debated for the past 40 years. To examine possible explanations for the inconsistent findings in this body of research, we conducted a multilevel meta-analysis synthesizing 336 effect sizes from 33 independent samples of human newborns, reported in 26 articles. The meta-analysis found significant evidence for neonatal imitation ( d = 0.68, 95% CI = [0.39, 0.96], p < .001) but substantial heterogeneity between study estimates. This heterogeneity was not explained by any of 13 methodological moderators identified by previous reviews, but it was associated with researcher affiliation, test of moderators ( QM) (15) = 57.09, p < .001. There are at least two possible explanations for these results: (a) Neonatal imitation exists and its detection varies as a function of uncaptured methodological factors common to a limited set of studies, and (2) neonatal imitation does not exist and the overall positive result is an artifact of high researcher degrees of freedom.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 975
Author(s):  
Yancai Xiao ◽  
Jinyu Xue ◽  
Mengdi Li ◽  
Wei Yang

Fault diagnosis of wind turbines is of great importance to reduce operating and maintenance costs of wind farms. At present, most wind turbine fault diagnosis methods are focused on single faults, and the methods for combined faults usually depend on inefficient manual analysis. Filling the gap, this paper proposes a low-pass filtering empirical wavelet transform (LPFEWT) machine learning based fault diagnosis method for combined fault of wind turbines, which can identify the fault type of wind turbines simply and efficiently without human experience and with low computation costs. In this method, low-pass filtering empirical wavelet transform is proposed to extract fault features from vibration signals, LPFEWT energies are selected to be the inputs of the fault diagnosis model, a grey wolf optimizer hyperparameter tuned support vector machine (SVM) is employed for fault diagnosis. The method is verified on a wind turbine test rig that can simulate shaft misalignment and broken gear tooth faulty conditions. Compared with other models, the proposed model has superiority for this classification problem.


2012 ◽  
Vol 184-185 ◽  
pp. 789-792
Author(s):  
Bing Li ◽  
Yu Lan Wei ◽  
Meng Dan Jin ◽  
Ying Ying Fan

Put forward a method that use scatter points which got in different places to measure the involution cylindrical gears, give a mathematical model that use the discrete points to sure the total deviation of gear tooth profile. The experience results show that this way is of high precision in measurement points, measurement an error data processing less intervention, etc.


Author(s):  
X. Lachenal ◽  
P. M. Weaver ◽  
S. Daynes

Conventional shape-changing engineering structures use discrete parts articulated around a number of linkages. Each part carries the loads, and the articulations provide the degrees of freedom of the system, leading to heavy and complex mechanisms. Consequently, there has been increased interest in morphing structures over the past decade owing to their potential to combine the conflicting requirements of strength, flexibility and low mass. This article presents a novel type of morphing structure capable of large deformations, simply consisting of two pre-stressed flanges joined to introduce two stable configurations. The bistability is analysed through a simple analytical model, predicting the positions of the stable and unstable states for different design parameters and material properties. Good correlation is found between experimental results, finite-element modelling and predictions from the analytical model for one particular example. A wide range of design parameters and material properties is also analytically investigated, yielding a remarkable structure with zero stiffness along the twisting axis.


1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (2A) ◽  
pp. 254-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. L. Litvin ◽  
N. X. Chen ◽  
J. Lu ◽  
R. F. Handschuh

An approach for the design and generation of low-noise helical gears with localized bearing contact is proposed. The approach is applied to double circular arc helical gears and modified involute helical gears. The reduction of noise and vibration is achieved by application of a predesigned parabolic function of transmission errors that is able to absorb a discontinuous linear function of transmission errors caused by misalignment. The localization of the bearing contact is achieved by the mismatch of pinion-gear tooth surfaces. Computerized simulation of meshing and contact of the designed gears demonstrated that the proposed approach will produce a pair of gears that has a parabolic transmission error function even when misalignment is present. Numerical examples for illustration of the developed approach are given.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37-38 ◽  
pp. 623-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Zhan Su ◽  
Zong De Fang

A fourth order transmission error was employed to improve the stability and tooth strength of circular-arc curvilinear cylindrical gears. The coefficient of fourth order polynomial curve was determined, the imaginary rack cutter which formed by the rotation of a head cutter and the imaginary pinion were introduced to determine the pinion and gear tooth surfaces, respectively. The numerical simulation of meshing shows: 1) the fourth order transmission error can be achieved by the proposed method; 2) the stability transmission can be performed by increasing the angle of the transfer point of the cycle of meshing; 3) the tooth fillet strength can be enhanced.


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