SKF has entered a three-year collaboration with the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to study the performance of wind turbine drivetrains under a variety of conditions and to gain insights into the possible causes of wind turbine bearing failures. The main purpose of this partnership is to investigate the failure modes of both gearbox and main shaft bearings, with the aim of developing new, improved designs for greater reliability.

The investigation work is being carried out on an existing GE 1.5 MW turbine installed at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center in Colorado. SKF will contribute to the project with a variety of components and systems, including a newly developed spherical roller bearing optimized for wind turbines (240/600 BC), bearing housing, seals, condi­tion monitoring hardware and software (SKF Multilog IMx-8 and @ptitude Observer 10.2) as well as an automated lubrication system.

@ptitude is a registered trademark of the SKF Group.