Wind Turbine Bearings

Let me start by covering a little bit about bearings in general. They are highly engineered and precision made components, which enable various aspects to move at high speeds. You can tell just how important bearings are for the fact that pretty much any form of machinery or piece of technology that twists or turns probably has a bearing in it.

When it comes to wind turbine bearings, the manufacturers need a bearing supplier with experience and capability to support critical pitch, yaw and gearbox applications in systems. It is highly important that you only enlist the help of an experienced supplier when it comes to wind turbine bearings due to their size and their use.

Wind turbine bearings need to be corrosion resistant due to their constant exposure to the elements. Without this resistance the bearings ability would be slowly reduced, affecting its performance, which would then go on to cause the wind turbine to stop working. In order to ensure that all wind turbine bearings are corrosion resistant they should come available with a wide range of surface treatments. If for whatever reason this isn't the case then you should enquire into what forms of surface treatments are available as the last thing you want to do is spend a lot of money on your bearings only to find that they need replacing in a short space of time. But what exactly should you be looking for when it comes to wind turbine bearings?

Well with all modern forms of wind turbines you will find spherical roller bearings as the main bearings that are present. So what does this mean to you? Well the term spherical means that the inside of the bearings outer ring is shaped to resemble a cross section of a ball. The reason for this is that it allows the inner and outer rings of the bearing to appear with a slight slant and they are out-of track in relation to each other without damaging the bearing while running.

The inner and outer rings of the bearing can slant to a maximum of half a degree. This may not sound like a large amount but this is all that is needed as it is a big enough slant to ensure that any possible small errors in alignment between the wind turbine shaft and the bearing housing will not give excessive edge loads, which could result in possible damage to the bearing.

With the spherical bearing you will find that it has two sets of rollers, which both allow for absorption of radial loads, which come from across the shaft from the weight of the rotor and shaft etc and from the large axial forces, again across the shaft, which results in wind pressure on the rotor.

With wind turbines the main bearings are mounted within the bearing housings, which are bolted to the main frame. The quantity of the bearings that are present is a factor that varies among the different types of wind turbines that are available. For example if you have a small wind turbine, which includes 150kW then they will be fitted with two bearings. If you have 250/300kW however they will only have the one bearing. Each of the bearing arrangements that are available come with their advantages and their disadvantages but the amount of bearings that you will need is basically calculated through the amount of wind turbines that you have and the size of these turbines.

For all of your Wind Turbine Bearing [http://www.howcroft.co.uk/windturbinebearings/] needs give Howcroft Industrial Supplies a visit today. They are experts and industry leaders when it comes to all forms of Bearings [http://www.howcroft.co.uk/bearings/].

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