Wind Power Gearbox Reliability

Subjects: Wind power, gearboxes, measurements.

Background
Vattenfall as one of Europe’s major wind farm operators put a lot of effort into enhancing reliability and availability of its production units. Part of this strive is to investigate the root cause to recent years frequent failure of planetary stage bearings and high speed shaft bearings in MW scale wind power gearboxes. This has been done by extensive measurements on several sites in Sweden and Denmark. More recently discussions have been held with external parties with the aim to build and operate a rig for testing of bearing performance. It is in Vattenfall’s interest to test bearings under realistic conditions and possibly reproduce the error patterns seen in production units.

Description
The master student must before initiating the project, in cooperation with his/her Vattenfall supervisors, work out a project specification where the project’s scope, goal, milestones and limitations are clearly defined. A time schedule must also be presented.

The master thesis project must focus on one or several of the following:
· Analyse measurement data, from power train and output side of a wind power unit, to correlate control actions or grid events to load variations.
· Based on measurement data and relevant questions concerning bearing operations, produce a test plan for a future test rig.
· Perform data analysis and, if possible, put focus on typical operation sequences of interest where bearing damage is more likely to occur.

Requirements
The master thesis project (30hp) is to be started during 1st quarter 2010 and delivered before the end of year 2010. Location is Vattenfall Research and Development offices in Älvkarleby, Sweden. The applicant is a master program engineering student with knowledge in mechanical and electrical engineering.

Application sent before 2010-02-28 to [email protected] including:
· CV
· Grades
· Application letter
· Suggestion regarding examiner and supervisor at home university.


Our reference:
Johan Lundström
Vattenfall Research and Development
814 26 Älvkarleby
026-83830
[email protected]