Wind Turbine Drive Unit Bracing Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing adjustment and drive units in wind power plants and large rotary mechanisms face issues with undesirable dynamic effects due to play in the drive train, leading to increased wear, overloading, and prolonged downtimes, despite the use of multiple adjusting drives and service brakes, which are inefficient and prone to wear.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves a control device with a bracing-adjustment device that dynamically adjusts the intensity of bracing between adjusting drives based on external loads, using load determining devices to vary bracing intensity according to wind conditions and load fluctuations, allowing for reduced wear and fewer adjusting drives while minimizing dynamic effects.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If a service brake is applied during adjustment to suppress dynamic effects, then dynamic stability is improved, but wear on the brake and adjusting drives increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the service brake from the system entirely, replacing it with a bracing mechanism where adjusting drives brace against each other during adjustment. This extraction of the brake component eliminates wear on braking elements while maintaining dynamic stability through the bracing action of the adjusting drives themselves.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines the adjustment function and the stabilization function into a single integrated mechanism. The adjusting drives perform both the adjustment movement and the bracing action simultaneously, eliminating the need for a separate service brake system and reducing overall wear on the drive train.
2Stability of the object's composition
If a service brake is applied during adjustment, then dynamic effects are suppressed, but the adjusting drives must be oversized to overcome the braking force
Solution Approach 1:
By removing the service brake from the system, the patent eliminates the additional braking force that adjusting drives would need to overcome. This allows the use of smaller, more efficiently sized adjusting drives that are optimized purely for the adjustment function without the penalty of brake opposition.
3Reliability
If multiple adjusting drives are used to reduce wear, then reliability is improved, but play in the drive train causes mobility and rotatory vibrations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by having adjusting drives brace against each other in opposition during adjustment. This creates pre-compression in the drive train that counteracts the play and mobility caused by backlash, preventing rotatory vibrations before they occur while maintaining reliability through the use of multiple drives.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to adjustment and/or drive units which can be used in wind power plants for adjusting the azimuth angle of the nacelle of the wind power plant or the pitch angle of the rotor blades, wherein such an adjustment and/or drive unit has at least two adjusting drives for rotating two assemblies which are mounted so as to be rotatable relative to each other, and has a control device for controlling the adjusting drives. The control device controls the adjusting drives in such a manner that the adjusting drives are braced relative to each other during the rotation of the two assemblies and/or when the assemblies are at standstill. The invention further relates to a wind power plant comprising such an adjustment and/or drive unit, and to a method for controlling such an adjustment and/or drive unit. According to the invention, the control device comprises a bracing-adjustment device for variably adjusting the intensity of the bracing of the adjusting drives as a function of a variable external load on the assemblies being adjusted, wherein the intensity can be determined by means of a load determining device. According to another aspect of the invention, an overload protection is included, wherein the individual loads of the individual adjusting drives are determined by load determining devices and, in the event that an adjusting drive reaches overload, the distribution of the drive torques is modified in such a manner that the adjusting drive reaching overload is relieved or at least not further loaded, and at least one further adjusting drive is more heavily loaded in a supporting manner or is less heavily loaded in a bracing manner.