Turbine Manufacturing Industry Research Articles

Comparative assessment of performance of foreign and local wind turbine manufacturers in China

Compared to the conventional fossil fuel energy, wind power provides clean energy which can mitigate the impacts of greenhouse gas emission and optimize the electric power source structure. During the last decade, the strong support of the Chinese government has contributed to the rapid development of the Chinese wind power sector which has in turn resulted in a significant growth of the Chinese wind turbine manufacturing industry. This growth went through several phases including the initial approval of several leading global Wind Turbine Manufacturers (WTMs) to enter the Chinese market through various methods which included the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises from 2005. Similarly, several government policies have contributed to the significant expansion in terms of both productivity and quantities by local Chinese WTMs. The entrance of foreign WTMs into the Chinese market coupled with the rapid growth of local WTMs has contributed to intense competition in China’s wind turbine manufacture market. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the wind turbine manufacturing industry in China and establishes a hierarchical structure of the WTMs’ competitive priority system. This system consists of 5 indicators and 10 sub-indicators. By comparing the different performances of each indicator, the competitive advantages and disadvantages of the foreign and local WTMs in the Chinese market are identified. The findings provide a valuable reference for the WTMs to improve their competitive priorities and to formulate their competitive strategy in the Chinese wind turbine market. This paper provides inputs for the sustainable development of wind power industry in other countries.

A heuristic for priority-based scheduling in a turbine manufacturing job-shop

The increasing importance of make-to-order manufacturing, inventory reduction and resource optimisation have placed further emphasis on the growing role of scheduling in the current global business environment. Often there has been a problem of applying the mathematically rich concepts of scheduling theory to solve the real-time industrial problems – in particular the problem of job-shop scheduling. In this context, in our current work, we develop a priority-based heuristic for minimising the makespan for a turbine manufacturing industry. This heuristic gives the optimal schedule based on the dynamic priorities of the customer work orders. We also propose bounds for makespan in job-shop scheduling environment. There are a host of issues addressed by the job shop scheduling system, like resource break-down, reentrance of the jobs on the resources that are already visited by the job. Our research helps in connecting the academic theory with real-time industrial scheduling problem to get better quality results.

North America

During 2010 and 2011, China had been the largest producer of wind turbines in the world for two consecutive years. How China can transform from being the largest producer to being the strongest producer of wind turbines is currently a great concern in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this issue from the perspective of the international competitiveness of China's wind turbine manufacturing industry. Firstly, the paper establishes a model for evaluating the international competitiveness of wind turbine manufacturing industry, which consists of five first-level indexes and 10 second-level indexes. Then, the paper uses these indexes to evaluate the international competitiveness of six leading wind turbine companies in the world—Vestas (Denmark), Gamesa (Germany), GE Wind (the USA), Nordex (Spain), Suzlon (India) and Sinovel (China). The result shows that the international competitiveness of the Chinese wind turbine company, Sinovel, ranked the fifth, lagging behind Vestas, Gamesa, GE Wind and Suzlon. Finally, the paper makes in-depth analysis on the major factors that hamper the international competitiveness of China's wind turbine manufacturing industry and provides implications for future development of the industry.

Fostering a renewable energy technology industry: An international comparison of wind industry policy support mechanisms

This article examines the importance of national and sub-national policies in supporting the development of successful global wind turbine manufacturing companies. We explore the motivations behind establishing a local wind power industry, and the paths that different countries have taken to develop indigenous large wind turbine manufacturing industries within their borders. This is done through a cross-country comparison of the policy support mechanisms that have been employed to directly and indirectly promote wind technology manufacturing in 12 countries. We find that in many instances there is a clear relationship between a manufacturer's success in its home country market and its eventual success in the global wind power market. Whether new wind turbine manufacturing entrants are able to succeed will likely depend in part on the utilization of their turbines in their own domestic market, which in turn will be influenced by the annual size and stability of that market. Consequently, policies that support a sizable, stable market for wind power, in conjunction with policies that specifically provide incentives for wind power technology to be manufactured locally, are most likely to result in the establishment of an internationally competitive wind industry.

EB-PVD process management for highly productive zirconia thermal barrier coating of turbine blades

Abstract Zirconia thermal barrier coatings are well used in the turbine manufacturing industry because they ensure extended lifetimes of turbine blades. Compared with other techniques, EB-PVD processes are best suited for the deposition on turbine blades with regard to the layer properties. Therefore EB-PVD coaters for turbine blades are becoming increasingly interesting. The coating costs per component are mainly dependent on a highly productive solution for the deposition task. Thus the EB-PVD process management has to be optimized in order to meet the productivity requirements of the manufacturers. This includes the requirement of high deposition rates, large deposition areas, long time stable production cycles as well as a matched duration of preheating, deposition and cooling down per charge. Modern EB-PVD solutions to be introduced allow deposition rates on blades up to 7 μm/min. The consequences for the technological process management and plant design concerning long time stable coating cycles with high productivity will be discussed.

95/05849 Gas markets in Europe

This paper uses firm level data for the Chinese wind turbine manufacturing industry from 1998 to 2009 to quantify the effects of technology acquisition mechanisms – purchasing production licenses from foreign manufacturers, joint design with foreign design firms, joint-ventures and domestic R&D – on wind turbine manufacturers' technology levels (as measured by turbine size, in megawatts). It also examines the impacts of government policies on manufacturer technology levels. Technology upgrading (measured by increase of turbine size) and catch-up (measured by decrease in the distance to the world technology frontier in terms of turbine size) are used to measure advances in technology level. Results from econometric modeling studies indicate that firms' technology acquisition mechanisms and degree of business diversification are statistically significant factors in influencing technology upgrading. Similar results were found for the catch-up variable (i.e., distance to the world technology frontier). The influence of government policies is significant for technology upgrading but not catch-up. These and other modeling results are shown to have implications for both policymakers and wind turbine manufacturers.

Improved modelling of cutting force coefficients in peripheral milling

Titanium is one of the most widely used metals in the aircraft and turbine manufacturing industries. Accurate prediction of cutting forces is important in controlling the dimensional accuracy of thin walled aerospace components. In this paper, a general three-dimensional mechanistic model for peripheral milling processes is presented. The effects of chip thickness, rake angle and cutting geometry on chip flow, rake face friction and pressure, and cutting forces are analyzed. A set of closed form expressions with experimentally estimated cutting force factors are presented for the prediction of cutting forces. The model is verified experimentally in the peripheral milling of a titanium alloy. For a given set of cutting conditions and tool geometry, the model predicts the cutting forces accurately for the chip thickness and rake angle ranges tested.