Wind Energy

Wind Energy Engineering and Mechanical Failure Services

Nations across the globe are scrambling to decarbonise their power grids. And, many are opting to do so via offshore or onshore wind farms (or a combination of both). 

In fact, recent years have seen a sizable up tick in wind power investments; the International Energy Agency points to a 20% increase in wind generation in 2022. Further, 2022 saw a massive 77.6 GW of new wind power capacity added to the grid. 

Wind power has truly arrived; but like other forms of power generation, wind turbines are subject to the laws of entropy - being subject to various forms of wear and friction during operation. 

To ensure your turbine fleet enjoys maximum uptime and reduced maintenance costs, it’s vital that you’re embedding engineering understanding and best practice throughout your operation and maintenance cycles. 

That’s where Neale Consulting Engineers enters the picture. 

Wind energy engineering and mechanical failure investigations

Aside from proactively applying engineering best practices to your wind turbine operations, it’s also vital that you conduct a root cause investigation in the event of a component failure. 

Neale Consulting Engineers has undertaken numerous wind turbine failure investigations. Examples are detailed below: 

Wind turbine main shaft bearings premature failure investigation

Bearings will generally fail eventually - but, in this instance, a leading manufacturer of large wind turbines was experiencing a spate of premature main shaft bearing failures. 

Given that changing main shaft bearings is a complex and costly operation, the manufacturer was concerned that these early failures could be symptomatic of a large-scale future problem; which, naturally, would have considerable cost implications. 

To figure out why these bearings were failing prematurely, they called in the tribology experts, Neale Consulting Engineers. 

Our team worked in collaboration with the manufacturer, examining the nature of the bearing damage and investigating all possible causes, including design and manufacturing quality. 

Whilst no single cause was apparent, triggering factors were identified. These included static electricity discharge damage, ‘standstill’ fretting marks, and lubrication deficiencies. 

As a result, the manufacturer implemented changes to eliminate and/or reduce the impact of these factors. 

Wind turbine gearboxes failure investigation

When a manufacturer of wind turbine gearboxes was experiencing a series of failures in the field (caused by fatigue spalling of certain bearings in the gearbox), they called in Neale Consulting Engineers. 

In order to determine the root cause of these repeated failures, Neale Consulting Engineers did two things: 

• Reviewed the gearbox designs to check that the bearing selection was appropriate for the duty.
• Investigated the operating duty of the gearbox itself. One contention explored was the potential adverse effects of vibrations and oscillations caused by sudden changes in loading, induced by gusts.

Ultimately, detailed examination of bearings taken from service revealed the true cause of the gearbox failures. 

Looking at the bearings, it was found that the initial sites of spalling, which are usually obscured by large-scale damage, coincided in position with some small axial scratches on the bearing raceway surface. These scratches were traced back to inaccurate guidance of the gear shafts during the factory assembly process. 

As a result, the manufacturer changed this procedure, eliminating the problem.

Improve your wind turbine uptime with Neale Consulting Engineers

As you’ve just read, Neale Consulting Engineers is adept at applying engineering and tribological best practices to wind turbines - maximising uptime, reducing failures and improving initial manufacturing processes. 

And, remember; as part of the Brookes Bell group, Neale Consulting Engineers is able to draw upon a broad talent pool that includes metallurgists, NDT specialists, engineers, and paint and coating experts (amongst others). 

Think of us as an ‘all-in-one’ solution to your wind turbine challenges.