Abstract
Wind turbine gearboxes are known to be among the weakest components in the system and the possibility to study and understand the behavior of geared transmissions when subject to several types of faults might be useful to plan maintenance and eventually reduce the costs by preventing further damage. The aim of this work is to develop a high-fidelity numerical model of a single-stage planetary gearbox selected as representative and to evaluate its behavior in the presence of surface fatigue and tooth-root bending damage, i.e., pits and cracks. The planetary gearbox is almost entirely modelled, including shafts, gears as well as bearings with all the rolling elements. Stresses and strains in the most critical areas are analyzed to better evaluate if the presence of such damage can be somehow detected using strain gauges and where to place them to maximize the sensitivity of the measures to the damage. Several simulations with different levels, types and positions of the damage were performed to better understand the mutual relations between the damaged and the stress state. The ability to introduce the effect of the damage in the model of a gearbox represents the first indispensable step of a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) strategy. The numerical activity was performed taking advantage of an innovative hybrid numerical–analytical approach that ensures a significant reduction of the computational effort. The developed model shows good sensitivity to the presence, type and position of the defects. For the studied configuration, the numerical results show clearly show a relation between the averaged rim stress and the presence of root cracks. Moreover, the presence of surface defects seems to produce local stress peaks (when the defects pass through the contact) in the instantaneous rim stress.
Highlights
The aim of the research is to investigate the behavior of a wind turbine’s single-stage planetary gearbox with several types of defects, such as pitting and tooth-root cracks
The simulation performed with the crack pointed out how the approach is properly capable of reproducing the is effects of the crack how the stresses near the rootdifferent of the
Damage scenarios to understand if a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) strategy could be effectively developed for such applications
Summary
The aim of the research is to investigate the behavior of a wind turbine’s single-stage planetary gearbox with several types of defects, such as pitting and tooth-root cracks. Gearboxes are among the components needing the most maintenance with a. As the replacement of this component is very time-consuming and costly, the lifetime of this component might be increased by scheduled maintenance. Given the behavior of the gearbox in the presence of damage, it might be useful to set up a sensor-based approach to monitor the conditions of the transmission and prevent and detect progressive damage. This can be based on stress/strain, temperature, and vibrations, etc. To detect the presence of the damage and, possibly, to determine its severity, type and position, the behavior of the system should be known
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