Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Introduction
Windflow Technology have designed, built and installed a prototype half-megawatt wind turbine on the Port Hills of Christchurch, New Zealand. They have planned a 104 turbine windfarm near Palmerston North. This paper describes: the novel gearbox design, being 4-stage epicyclic, with flexible planet pins to aid load sharing, and a hydraulic torque limiter to reduce peak loads on the machinery. vibration monitoring, analysis of source of audible noise, and the resulting gearbox design modifications to run quieter. online monitoring after re-installation, including remote communications and a basic level of shutdown protection.
Design Innovations
The Windflow turbine design has been optimized for New Zealand conditions. These conditions demand tolerance for strong gusty winds, and yet relative light weight for ease of installation in our steep remote hills.
Page 1 of 17
Page 2 of 17
Time (s)
The TLG is a simple concept: attach a hydraulic pump on the side of the gearbox, which pumps against a closed relief valve. The pump is normally stationary and the gearbox has a fixed ratio from input to output, but during sudden gusts the increased torque causes the pump pressure to exceed the relief valve, and mechanical slip results, dissipating the torque. The rotor over-speeds slightly, causing the automatic pitch control mechanism to readjust.
Page 3 of 17
In practice this is complex, requiring the forth stage epicyclic to have all three components in motion (ring, sun and planet carrier). The diagram below is further complicated by the addition of the external disk brake for emergency shutdowns.
Page 4 of 17
They were seeing very high vibration levels at the running speed of the generator. They knew that the test rig motor was running at a similar speed, but could not determine which was the actual culprit. By taking a few high resolution spectra it was clear that the 1480 rpm test rig motor was totally dominating the vibration from the generator at 1500 rpm. Windflow were very happy!
WINDMILL - GEN DE - Horizontal - Vel Freq 100 Hz 7/04/2003 2:54:16 p.m.
Point Note (8/04/2003 9:43:57 a.m.) GEN DE = Generator, Drive End
4.5 4 3.5 3 mm/s 0-pk 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 1,300 1,350 1,400 1,450 1,500 CPM 1,550 1,600 1,650 1,700
Cursor A:
1480.275 CPM
<set RPM>
<add note>
Page 5 of 17
I created a spreadsheet to calculate all the various fault frequencies (planet pass, carrier, sun, ring, and all the usual bearing ones at whatever speed they happen to be turning).
Page 6 of 17
Of particular concern was the huge peak at 311 Hz, which was frustratingly close, but not equal, to the second stage GMF of 313.36 Hz. No number of recalculations could bring the two together! I suspected a modulation effect, caused by the planets passing the location of the accelerometer. The Frequency based Waveform Analysis function in the Ascent software enabled me to look at the waveform in a narrow band around 311 Hz.
This showed clear modulation! So the actual peak must be just a sideband of the GMF. The difference between the two cursors on the waveform shows modulation at about 10 Hz, which does correspond with the Planet Pass frequency (Carrier fc of 2.51 Hz x 4 planets). BUT the difference between 311 Hz and the actual GMF is about 2.5 Hz, not the 10 Hz. so thats not quite it Later in the proceedings Windflow engaged the services of many acoustics and vibration experts. One of whom was Lan Le-Ngoc from IRL. He uncovered a paper by J. Mc Names titled Fourier Series Analysis of Epicyclic Gearbox Vibration. The complex math he used predicted that the phased signal from each of the planets would cancel out the others, except at multiples of the number of planets. As an example he used a gearbox with 119 teeth on the Ring gear, for which you would expect to measure a GMF at 119 times the Carrier rpm. He predicted that the vibrations would cancel at all frequencies except for multiples of the 8 planets, ie at 112, 120, 128 (x Carrier rpm).
Page 7 of 17
Measurements on a Cobra AH-1S helicopter gearbox proved this to be exactly the case. The GMF appeared at 120 cpr, not 119!
The Windflow gearbox second stage has 4 planets and 125 ring teeth. So the closest #planet multiple is 124 cpr, and: 124/125 * 313.5 Hz (actual GMF) = 311 Hz (observed GMF). Eureka! So we were now sure that large vibration peak was coming from the gearbox second stage. But why was it so much larger than that from the (almost identical) first stage? Note that the first stage has the same number of ring teeth (125) as the second stage, but has 8 planets instead of 4, so the closest #planet multiples are a lot further away from the actual GMF, at 120 and 128
Page 8 of 17
Windflow were already behind schedule for installing the turbine on the hill, so I concluded my (unofficial) testing report with the disclaimer: Using ISO 10816-3 as a reference (rpm<=600, rigid, group2), most locations have Acceptable overall vibration levels in the 10-1000 Hz band However I suggest that the 311 Hz frequency region should be closely monitored when the Wind turbine is operating. It seems significant that by comparison the 1st stage GMF at 102 Hz is almost non-existent in the spectra.
LEQ Sound Pressure Level on Julie Riley's Property 8-10-03 35 LEQ Sound Pressure Level 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 16
21:50 Idle (L95 = 23.4 dBA) 22:30 Generating (L95 = 28.2 dBA) 22:10 Generating (L95 = 29.8 dBA) 22:40 Idle (L95 = 23.4 dBA) 22:20 Generating L95 = 31.2 dBA)
Note: At frequencies where no data points are shown, the measured sound pressure level was below 11 dBA.
25
40
63
100
160
250
400
630
1k
1.6k 2.5k 4k
6.3k 10k
Page 9 of 17
It worked incredibly well! Being a passive microphone its output was rather low so I entered a low sensitivity of 10 mV/g into the instrument. The resulting spectra had units of gs - rather strange for a sound recording, but perfectly functional for our purpose of identifying the exact frequencies.
0.14
0.12
311 Hz
0.1
0.08
375 Hz
g rms
0.06
985 Hz
0.04
100 Hz
0.02
200
400
Hz
600
800
1,000
base base 30M from base 5M from base 5M from base inside base inside base
Acc Freq 3000 Hz Acc Freq 2000 Hz Acc Freq 2000 Hz Acc Freq 2000 Hz Acc Freq 2000 Hz Acc Freq 2000 Hz Acc Freq 2000 Hz
14/07/2003 1:27:28 p.m. 14/07/2003 1:23:43 p.m. 14/07/2003 1:15:07 p.m. 14/07/2003 3:55:37 p.m. 14/07/2003 1:17:00 p.m. 14/07/2003 1:22:05 p.m. 14/07/2003 3:54:27 p.m.
O/All 0.377 O/All 0.25 g O/All 0.035 O/All 0.046 O/All 0.006 O/All 0.269 O/All 0.127
As suspected, the main culprit was the old 311 Hz 2nd stage GMF
Page 10 of 17
As Windflow described it, their turbine was acting as a tuned music system: Stage 2 gear mesh was the CD player a low speed shaft resonance was the amplifier the blades were acting as speakers. But the music was a very boring single note, E-flat, 311 Hz!
Page 11 of 17
After each refit the gearbox was tested on their new full-power test rig, with detailed before and after vibration readings taken. By this stage Windflow had purchased their own vb instrument and were becoming proficient VA analysts themselves! The final solution is. well confidential, as it was so successful that Windflow have filed a patent to cover it! See for yourself in the before and after spectra:
0.7
FFT 1-30 - FFT 1 - Not specified - Acc Freq 1200 Hz 30/04/2004 2:14:30 p.m.
O/All 0.991 g rms
0.6
0.5
0.4
<set RPM>
Page 12 of 17
0.7
FFT 1-30 - FFT 1 - Not specified - Acc Freq 1200 Hz 7/07/2004 5:04:47 p.m.
O/All 0.468 g rms
0.6
0.5
0.4
<set RPM>
The on-site PC was intended to be a simple, low cost solid state PC with no moving parts. These are sold under names like WinTerm and ThinClient. They use flash memory, have processors around 1 GHz and cost only US $500. This PC runs the OnlineManager program which schedules the recordings on the vbOnline module, stores them in a database, checks alarms and controls the modules output relays.
Page 13 of 17
We established a machine structure in which daily gearbox surveillance recordings were kept separate from the very frequent protection recordings.
For the protection readings, alarm checking was complicated by several factors: the significant changes in vibration levels at different power output levels the gusty nature of the wind, causing rapid power level changes the desire to have a second opinion reading, before causing a turbine shutdown
We addressed these issues by reading the generators power output level from the turbines PLC control system. We established Recording Criteria to separate the recordings into three generation power levels, each with their own alarm thresholds. Recording Intervals alternated the Check1 and Check2 recordings, each of which controlled an output relay.
Page 14 of 17
We wired the two relays in series so both would need to be activated to cause a shutdown.
This solution proved to be adequate, but is rather complex and the separation into the generation power levels is not perfect. Development is underway to streamline this, which should yield benefits not just for wind turbines but for all users of variable speed machinery.
2006 Update
Those developments are nearing completion. We now have: Onboard Criteria Recordings can be configured to only be taken when the speed and/or another parameter (in this case generation power) are stable and within specified ranges. QuickScan Mode Rapidly scans all channels checking for excessive overall vibration levels, in order to quickly detect serious mechanical failures. The userconfigurable responses range from e-mails and sms messages to relay activation. Normal vibration analysis recordings are automatically interleaved with QuickScans, at their scheduled times. In this Wind Turbine application the option of applying RPM Criteria to the QuickScan is useful to ensure the readings are only taken when the wind is blowing! Robustness Enhancements These cover a wide range of issues, from the ability to detect sensor faults and warn users of communication failures, to a suite of Relay enhancements including configurable time delays and the provision of manual override. Stay tuned: the results from applying these techniques to monitoring the Windflow turbine will be covered in a future paper
Page 15 of 17
Acknowledgements Acknowledgement of significant contribution to the content of this paper: Warwick Payne, Windflow Technology. Geoff Henderson, Windflow Technology. Lan Le-Ngoc, Industrial Research Limited. James McNames, Portland State University. Nigel Leigh, MSc (Physics, Hons) is a design engineering manager for Commtest Instruments Ltd. He has seven years experience in the design and manufacture of vibration analysis equipment, both portble and online systems. He has served as committee member of the Vibration Association of New Zealand (VANZ) for the past four years.
Page 16 of 17