Wind turbines: gear oil that can stay in
A wind turbine gearbox is costly to replace and hard to reach. Particles, water and varnish in the gear oil wear bearings and gears. An offline filter cleans the oil in the nacelle while the turbine generates.
What happens to the gear oil
Gear oil works under high load and changing temperatures. Wear particles, condensation water and degradation products build up, and varnish deposits on bearings and tooth flanks.
An oil change requires access to the nacelle, and switching between oil types often requires a flush of the gearbox as well.
Clean the oil instead of changing it
A compact offline filter is connected to the gearbox in a kidney loop and cleans the oil continuously. The cartridge captures particles down to 0.1 µm and binds water, and it is the system's only wear part.
The additives stay in the oil: in the trial on GE 1.5 MW gearboxes, molybdenum, calcium and phosphorus remained largely unchanged while the varnish potential fell.
Cleaned in the nacelle while the turbine runs
The oil is drawn from the bottom of the gearbox, through the cartridge and back. The gearbox's own inline filter and operation are unchanged.
Documented on real gearboxes
An operator with 117 GE 1.5 MW turbines tested offline filtration on four gearboxes, 15 and 16 years old. After 120 days, the varnish potential had fallen from 57.1 to 3.2 and the water from 87 to 61 ppm. In a laboratory trial, 10-year-old discarded gear oil from a 2 MW turbine was cleaned of 97.6% of the particles above 14 µm.
Start with an oil sample
We analyse the oil samples ourselves, so results arrive within a few days. If the numbers show a problem, the pilot programme runs with samples before and after.
Contact us, or call76 20 80 10.