Wheel HubAssembly Kit

Even the 'standard' wind turbine continues to develop in its design.  Over the last 30 or so years, wind turbines have substantially grown in size in order to continue to reduce the energy cost. However, this has increased the importance of design issues such as structural performance (including materials issues), maintenance requirements, safety concerns, noise and visual pollution plus component transport issues. The number of scientific papers discussing wind turbine design and optimisation has in fact grown rapidly over the last 20 years. Wind turbine design by multi-objective optimisation, often based on evolutionary / genetic algorithms, is now used in an attempt to optimise wind turbine (including blade) design subject to multiple objectives and constraints. This is a highly technical (indeed mathematical) and rapidly changing area of investigation. However, it is also clearly of high and immediate commercial importance for the wind energy industry.

Indeed, there is a plethora of innovative ideas in the area of wind turbine design. These include wind tunnel towers, typhoon turbines and wind hydro-turbine hybrid technology, as discussed in this article describing six innovative designs for wind turbines. There is also a wide range of (at this stage) rather speculative developments in the area of high-altitude wind power based on kites, tethered gliders and sailplanes, aerostats, airfoils and a host of other approaches which could prove both cheap and capable of circumventing the usual wind power intermittency issues.

Wheel Bearing HubAssembly Front

The questions posed in the title of this article are of high and increasing importance as societies gradually transition towards a renewables dominated energy mix. It is fair to say that the engineering associated with wind power is mature in that it has already provided a major contribution to the power requirements of many countries and will increasingly do so in Australia and the rest of the world. The issues of optimal design of individual turbines and wind farms are being addressed with increasing sophistication that address specific constraints associated with individual projects. These considerations are essential for the future commercial success of wind power.

However, there is still a lot of R&D activity going on in the area of wind power generation. This is evident in both the basic design of wind turbines and in the layout of farms of multiple wind generators. For example, the vortex wind turbine is a bladeless cylindrical tower that produces electrical energy in response to vibrations caused by naturally swirling air flows. This is seen as attractive due to relatively low manufacturing and maintenance costs, with no major mechanical parts, gears or bearings.The prospect of a more visually appealing 'slime-line', low-mass tower design is clearly appealing. However, this type of technology is still in its infancy and is seen by some as more form than function. Questions remain as to its low swept area (available wind energy), inefficiency in conversion of mechanical oscillations into electricity, scale-up issues associated with the oscillating frequency of the cylinder in turbulent flows and potential for noise generation. Nevertheless, the concept of bladeless wind turbines is highly attractive and inspires continued R&D.

Wind turbines have been in commercial use for the generation of electricity for quite some time. In Denmark, by 1908 there were 72 wind turbines, each generating 5 kW to 25 kW of electrical power. In the 21st century, wind power is in rapidly increasing commercial use in over 80 countries around the world. The industry is currently dominated by large-bladed towers which can evoke passionate comments (both positive and negative) in terms of their aesthetics and claims of possible health effects. It is easy to form the impression that most of the action these days is in terms of engineering scale-up of existing design(s) of individual three-bladed, propeller-type towers and wind farm layouts.

Wheel hub bearingsymptoms

The optimal design of the spatial configuration of multiple wind turbines in a farm is also a question of high commercial importance, given that wind turbines are increasingly installed in large arrays. Multi-objective wind farm layout optimisation is being used to accurately address the issue of the placement of individual turbines to balance higher turbine density with increased wake interference. There are typically multiple objectives involving balancing wind farm total energy production, capital investment and operational costs. This may include issues associated with topography and predominant wind direction and speed. The modelling techniques used to investigate wind farm layout optimisation are often based on evolutionary algorithms in some respects similar to those used for single turbine design optimisation. The appropriate choice of algorithms to achieve optimal solutions subject to a wide variety of possible constraints (think wind farm spatial boundaries, infeasible areas, minimum clearing distance and number of turbines) is still an open question. Again though, it is clear the modelling associated with producing commercially optimal wind farm designs is highly technical and frankly, still under development.

Understanding the differences between a hub assembly and a hub bearing to help yourself make informed decisions about which part needs to be replaced.