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Wind Turbine Gearboxes

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2025-02-12

The Reliability Game

Call it destiny, divine intervention or good ole-fashioned fate, speaking with Alejandro Pardiñas, CEO of Atlantic Bearing Services (ABS) and ABS Wind, one gets the impression he had no choice other than to become a mechanical engineer. This was evident way back when his great-grandfather became a mining engineer for Rio Tinto.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2024-11-21

A Sneak Peek at Quality Control at Atlantic Bearing Services (ABS)

Antonio Martin Hernandez, Marco Partidas, Dayan Leng Armenteros, and Laura Vazquez diligently working on various components that require special attention. They are focused on inner rings (IRs) for cylindrical roller bearings, which play a crucial role in reducing friction and supporting radial loads. Additionally, they handle bevel gears, essential components in gearboxes that change the direction of torque transmission across various industrial applications.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2024-11-06

Iberdrola-Avangrid and Alejandro Pardiñas to Receive the Ponce de Leon Awards from the Spain-US Chamber of Commerce

The Spain-US Chamber of Commerce in Florida is proud to announce that the recipients of the 2024 Ponce de León Awards for "Company of the Year" are Iberdrola and its U.S. subsidiary, Avangrid and the "Executive of the Year" is Alejandro Pardiñas, CEO of ABSrecognizing their exceptional contributions to energy innovation and industrial leadership. 

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2024-10-15

Sartell City Council Enters Purchase Agreement with Niron Magnetics for Major Development

The Sartell City Council has signed a Purchase Agreement with Niron Magnetics for 79 acres of public land on the east side of 4th Avenue South. This property, part of the 167-acre Champion Plat acquired by the City of Sartell last year during the purchase of the Mill District, marks a significant development for the community.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2024-09-20

R&D Test Systems Completes Foundation for new Test Bench: Main Bearings for 25 MW Wind Turbines

Nine months into building the most powerful test bench for main bearings to date, R&D Test Systems, Denmark’s wind turbine test specialist, has completed the 3,700 metric ton foundation and is now designing and welding the test bench parts that will perform extreme test loads on main bearings for 25 MW wind turbines. With delivery in 2025, the test bench is bound for LORC’s new main bearing test facility.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2024-09-09

ZF Wind Power Coimbatore is the first plant in India to roll out 50 Gigawatts of Wind Gearboxes

ZF Wind Power has announced a major milestone for the Indian market: the total production of 50 GW gearbox capacity at its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Coimbatore, India. This achievement underlines ZF’s commitment to India's renewable energy landscape, while strengthening their position as a strategic partner on the road to a sustainable future.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2024-08-23

Emerging Technology Center Sneak Peek at IMTS 2024

When manufacturing leaders, job shop owners, engineers, and designers want to see what their operations might look like in the near future, one of their must-visit destinations is AMT’s Emerging Technology Center (ETC) at IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show. IMTS 2024 runs Sept. 9-14 at Chicago’s McCormick Place.

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PRODUCT NEWS | 2024-07-26

Schaeffler Optimizes Wind Turbines Using Closed Loop Engineering

Wind turbines have a decisive role to play in the expansion of renewable energy. Schaeffler is a market leader and strategic development partner in the wind technology industry, leveraging closed loop engineering to play a key role that goes far beyond the provision of bearing solutions for on- and offshore wind. Working in close partnership with turbine and gearbox manufacturers, the company supports wind turbine development through state-of-the art system simulation, realistic test-bench testing, and field measurement campaigns.

PRODUCT NEWS | 2023-11-21

ONYX Insight’s Software Enhances Turbine Condition Monitoring

ONYX Insight has unveiled a new upgrade to its fleetMONITOR technology which will enable wind operators to monitor the health of their turbines using data from Bently Nevada System.   

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2023-09-29

Derivation of Relative EHL Film Thickness

This report derives the equation for relative elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) film thickness. Mineral (MIN), polyalphaolefin (PAO), and polyalkylene glycol (PAG) lubricants with viscosity grades of ISO 320, 150, and 32 are analyzed.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2023-09-28

Repowering the Future: Data-Driven Wind Farms

There is growing financial risk to maintaining operational wind turbines. The average lifespan of a wind turbine is around 20 years and as components within turbines begin to approach the end of their lifecycle, performance can decline resulting in reduced productivity. Meanwhile, recent reports have highlighted that new, larger capacity machines could lead to a rise in component failures and mechanical breakdown issues as manufacturers push to develop bigger turbines, faster.

PRODUCT NEWS | 2023-08-14

NKE Set to Display Bearings at Husum Wind 2023

NKE Austria GmbH (Booth #3C16) will exhibit at this year's Husum Wind trade show taking place September 12-15 in Husum, Germany. The Austrian bearing manufacturer participates for the first time at the fair for renewable energies in Northern Germany.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2023-07-20

Nearthlab Expands Partnership with ONYX Insight

Nearthlab, a leading provider of autonomous drone technology, announced that the company is scaling up its strategic partnership with ONYX Insight, a global provider of predictive maintenance solutions (PdM) beyond North America to Europe and APAC. The expansion comes a few months after the initial kick-off in March.  

PRODUCT NEWS | 2023-05-16

Heidenhain to Exhibit at Cleanpower

Heidenhain Corporation will be exhibiting at Cleanpower, May 22-25 in New Orleans, LA. The booth (#1514) will feature technologies from two companies in the Heidenhain family of brands—Leine Linde and LTN—that can reduce challenges related to wind turbine service and boost overall uptime. 

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INDUSTRY NEWS | 2023-04-24

NKE Austria Announces Partnership with Kugler Bimetal

Bearing manufacturer NKE Austria GmbH is entering into a strategic partnership with Kugler Bimetal SA, a Swiss producer of bimetallic components and tribological surface finishes. The cooperation was announced at the Hannover Messe in April 2023. 

PRODUCT NEWS | 2023-03-21

NKE to Feature Wind Power Bearings at Hannover Messe

At this year’s Hannover Messe, NKE Austria GmbH will present bearings for wind turbine gearboxes and generators. The Austrian bearing manufacturer has more than 20 years of experience in the wind energy sector. NKE bearings have been installed in more than 4,000 wind turbines across Europe, the USA and China, equivalent to more than 10,000 MW of installed power. 

POWER PLAY | 2022-12-02

Wind of Change

Wind-turbine drivetrains undergo severe transient loading during start-ups, shut-downs, emergency stops, and during grid connections. Load cases that result in torque reversals may be particularly damaging to bearings, as rollers may be skidding during the sudden relocation of the loaded zone. Seals and lubrication systems must work reliably over a wide temperature variation to prevent the ingress of dirt and moisture and perform effectively at all rotational speeds in the gearbox. Many wind-turbine gearboxes have also suffered from fundamental design issues such as ineffective interference fits that result in unintended motion and wear, ineffectiveness of internal lubrication paths and problems with sealing. Improving the resistance of future gearbox designs to all these issues is a key to the future cost of energy generated by wind turbines.

REVOLUTIONS | 2022-11-21

Freudenberg Seals Improve Offshore Wind Turbine Service Life

The European Union aims to expand the capacity for wind power generated at sea to at least 60 gigawatts by 2030. With its sealing solutions for the foundation structures, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies helps ensure that new wind turbines reach a service life of at least 30 years or more despite the rough conditions at sea. 

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2022-10-03

ZF Wind and R&D Test Systems Develop Test Bench for Powertrains and Gearboxes

In its largest order to date, Danish wind turbine test specialist R&D Test Systems will develop the 30 MW powertrain and gearbox test bench for ZF Wind Power’s future “Test & Prototype Center” at Lommel, Belgium. Capable of simulating the multiplicity of wind loads that a nacelle powertrain might experience in its lifetime, the test rig, to be delivered in 2024, will help improve product reliability and shorten time to market.

REVOLUTIONS | 2022-08-29

Freudenberg Aids High Flying Wind Farm

Wind farms are expanding around the world. This is good for climate change. Wind turbines are being installed on the high seas with nacelle heights of more than 100 meters and rotor diameters of nearly 170 meters. This increases both the electricity yield and economic efficiency. Freudenberg is aiding wind power’s conquest with high performance components and materials.

REVOLUTIONS | 2022-07-11

The Quest for the Perfect Turbine

ONYX Insight examines how digital tools can provide wind energy solutions, from day-to-day problem solving to future-proofing operations and maintenance (O&M) strategies through condition monitoring technologies.

REVOLUTIONS | 2022-05-06

The Extreme Ends of Turbine Condition Monitoring

One of ONYX’s customers and a leader in driving up the reliability and asset performance of the wind industry, Pattern Energy, uses ONYX turbine monitoring for over 1,100 wind turbines. Across this fleet ONYX connects several CMS hardware types to fleetMONITOR, a multi-brand solution for drivetrain monitoring. Two of the wind farms were retrofitted with ecoCMS in 2018, the technology with which ONYX disrupted the CMS industry.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2021-04-01

How Reliable is a Reliability Calculation?

Bearing subsystem life and reliability explained.
FEATURE ARTICLES | 2021-02-01

How Predictive Maintenance Can Unlock Offshore Wind Growth

A practical guide to adopting digital technology in wind energy applications.
| 2020-01-29

From Walkarounds to Wireless Monitoring

Advances in condition monitoring technology means maintenance and operations teams can spend less time collecting data, and more time acting on it,...
TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2019-12-01

Reliability Safeguarding for an 8 MW Wind Energy Gearbox in Serial Production

Prototype and Process Development Ensuring Stable Quality at the Highest Level
TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2016-08-01

FZG Gearboxes Lubricated with Different Formulations of Polyalphaolefin Wind Turbine Gear Oils

In order to analyze the different gear oils suitable for the lubrication of wind turbine gearboxes, five fully formulated ISO VG 320 gear oils were selected. In between the selected gear oils, four PAO base oils can be found: PAOR, PAOM, PAOC and PAOX. A mineral-based oil (MINR) was also included as reference.
FEATURE ARTICLES | 2015-08-01

Belts Vs. Couplings

rotary-type blowers? Examples: for motor KW; RPM; temperature; pressure production; lifetime; etc. In other words, how do I choose between belts or couplings?
TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2015-04-01

How to Get the Most Realistic Efficiency Calculation for Gearboxes

In recent years the estimation of gearbox power loss is attracting more interest — especially in the wind turbine and automotive gearbox industry — but also in industrial gearboxes where heat dissipation is a consideration as well. As new transmissions concepts are being researched to meet both ecological and commercial demands, a quick and reliable estimation of overall efficiency becomes inevitable in designing the optimal gearbox.
TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2014-09-01

Wind Turbine Field and Test Rig Testing as Part of the Design Process for Gearboxes

The growth of worldwide energy consumption and emerging industrial markets demands an increase of renewable energy shares. The price pressure coming from coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas energy - combined with enormous worldwide production capacities for components of wind turbines - make wind energy a highly competitive market. The testing and validation of gearboxes within the test rig and the turbine environment attract a strong focus to the needs of the industry. The following contribution sums up the typical process requirements and provides examples for successful system and component verifications based on field measurements.
TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2014-04-01

Gear Lubrication: Long-Term Protection for Wind Turbines

The chemical and physical properties of gear oils may change, depending - more or less - upon their formulation and the environmental conditions under which they are used. This is why - after three years of use in a wind turbine - a gear oil was examined to determine if indeed changes were evident and if the protection of the gears and rolling bearings still met the same requirements as would be expected of fresh oil. Our findings revealed that the existing gear oil - as well as its ability to protect the gears and rolling bearings - had degraded very little compared to fresh oil.
TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2014-03-01

Investigations of Bearing Failures Associated with White Etching Areas (WEAs) in Wind Turbine Gearboxes

A critical problem for wind turbine gearboxes is failure of rolling element bearings where axial cracks form on the inner rings. This article presents field experience from operating wind turbines that compares the performance of through-hardened and carburized materials. It reveals that through-hardened bearings develop WEA/WECs and fail with axial cracks, whereas carburized bearings do not. The field experience further shows that a carburized bearing with a core having low carbon content, high nickel content, greater compressive residual stresses, and a higher amount of retained austenite provides higher fracture resistance and makes carburized bearings more durable than through-hardened bearings in the wind turbine environment.
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