Standardized Planetary Gear Stages for Wind Turbine Platform Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Custom-made wind turbine gearboxes require lengthy design and manufacturing times due to their custom nature, making them inefficient in a market with lower quantity demands and increased competition, where standardization is necessary for cost-effectiveness and faster time-to-market.
Innovation Solution
A group of gearboxes is standardized into series, each comprising multiple gearboxes for different torque ranges, with shared components like sun gears, ring gears, and planet gears having the same number of teeth and module, allowing for re-use across different torque requirements, reducing design and production costs while maintaining reliability and robustness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If custom-made gearboxes are designed for each customer requirement, then the gearbox can meet specific torque and performance needs, but the design and manufacturing time increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by creating a platform gearbox design where a single standardized first planetary gear stage can serve multiple different torque requirements. The sun gear, ring gear, and planet gears are standardized with fixed tooth counts and modules, allowing the same planetary stage to be used across different gearbox variants by simply changing the parallel gear unit configuration.
Solution Approach 2:
The gearbox is segmented into two independent modules: a standardized first planetary gear stage and a configurable parallel gear unit. This segmentation allows the planetary stage to be designed once and reused, while the parallel gear unit can be adjusted to meet different torque and performance requirements, thus reducing overall design time while maintaining customization capability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If custom-made gearboxes are manufactured in low quantities, then specific customer needs are met, but manufacturing cost efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The standardized first planetary gear stage serves as a universal component that can be manufactured in larger quantities for multiple gearbox variants. This increases the production volume of critical components like sun gears, ring gears, and planet gears, thereby improving manufacturing cost efficiency through economies of scale while still allowing customization through different parallel gear units.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables recovery and reuse of the standardized planetary gear stage across different gearbox models and customer orders. Instead of manufacturing new planetary stages for each custom gearbox, the same standardized stage is recovered and reused, reducing per-unit manufacturing costs while maintaining the ability to meet specific customer requirements through configuration changes in the parallel gear unit.
3Productivity
If standardized components are used across different torque ranges, then manufacturing time and cost are reduced, but the ability to meet high torque requirements may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces dynamics by allowing the number of planet gears in the standardized planetary stage to be varied (3, 4, 5, or 6 planets) while keeping the sun gear, ring gear, and planet gear tooth counts standardized. This dynamic configuration enables the same standardized component set to adapt to different torque requirements, maintaining productivity benefits while expanding the torque range coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses parameter changes by modifying the number of planet gears and the configuration of the parallel gear unit to achieve different torque outputs from the same standardized planetary stage. This allows a single standardized design to cover multiple torque ranges by changing operational parameters rather than redesigning the entire gearbox, thus maintaining both manufacturing efficiency and torque adaptability.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention provides a group (G) of gearboxes (GB) for a wind turbine, the group (G) of gearboxes (GB) comprising at least two series (S1, S2), each series (S1, S2) comprising at least three gearboxes (GB1, GB2, GB3) for different torques (T1, T2, T3) higher than 0,2 MNm. Each of the gearboxes (GB1, GB2, GB3) of a series (S1, S2) comprises a first planetary gear stage (20a) comprising a sun gear (21), a ring gear (22), and three, four, five or six planet gears (23). For each of the gearboxes (GB1, GB2, GB3) of the series (S1, S2) the sun gears (21) in the first planetary gear stage (20a) have a same number of teeth (24), the ring gears (22) in the first planetary gear stage (20a) have a same number of teeth (25), the planet gears (23) in the first planetary gear stage (20a) each have a same number of teeth (26), and all gears (21, 22, 23) have a same module.