Research on the dynamic characteristics of wind turbine gearboxes under the spatiotemporal inhomogeneous in the wake

Abstract

In response to the problem of increasing fatigue load and frequent faults caused by the wake effect, the dynamic characteristics and fatigue life analysis of wind turbine gearbox under the Spatial-temporal non-uniformity of wake region were carried out in this paper. A rigid-flexible coupling model of gears transmission system for a 2 MW wind turbine was established. Based on the three-dimensional Station-temporal inhomogeneous wake model proposed in our previous work, the wind speed distribution of six typical locations in the wake region was obtained. Results show that, the spatiotemporal inhomogeneous effects of the wake expansion have great impact on the dynamic characteristics of the gearboxes for the downwind turbines located in different positions. Vibration energy representing the magnitude of impact energy during the operation of the gearbox is significantly higher under wake conditions than under upstream conditions; meanwhile, the gearbox vibration signal contains more impact component in the wake. The velocity deficit and increased turbulence intensity results in less intense but more complex vibration non-smoothness in the turbine transmission system. As the downwind distance downwind increases, the vibration frequency distribution of the transmission system at each moment is larger, but the vibration energy is reduced. Under the 3D spatiotemporal inhomogeneous effects of the wake expansion, the downstream turbine with staggered arrangement is less affected by wake and has a smoother vibration than the tandem arrangement. At the same downstream distance, the gear life is better in a tandem arrangement than in a staggered arrangement (a maximum value happens at the downstream distance of 6D). Research in this paper can provide references for the study of the dynamic characteristics of large wind turbine transmission systems under the wake effects as well as for the micro-siting of wind farms.