Gary Nicholas – Smart sensors for the wind industry
Gary Nicholas // University of Sheffield // Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC) // Net Zero
Over the past two decades, there has been a 715% increase in wind energy generation in the UK, with the sector generating a £6b turnover in 2019. As the power capacity and wind turbines rotor diameter increases, larger main-shaft roller bearings are necessary to allow for the same margin of safety. Despite these bearing approaching their maximum size limit, failure rates remain high. This is partly due to machining challenges from distortions and tight tolerances. In addition, historically, rolling bearing life are estimated through data from small-sized bearing which would be invalid for larger-sized bearings as is used in wind turbine drivetrains. To reduce failures, the wind industry is currently facing a paradigm shift from rolling to sliding bearings. However, the industry has no experience of sliding bearing performance in the highly transient conditions of the wind turbine powertrain. Additionally, sliding bearings are traditionally used in high-speed applications such as jet engines and are unproven for slow-speed environments such as on a wind turbine driveshaft. This project intends on rectifying this through developing a suite of measurement techniques to provide the underpinning data.
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