Challenge:
Design the most advantageous crowning for pinion gear teeth to minimize stress by increasing contact area and decreasing average contact stress.
Solution:
The engineers at Nabtesco Corporation used Abaqus finite element analysis (FEA) software to calculate the contact area and stress of various pinion gear designs. With the help of their own subroutine, the engineers were able to model both contact area and stress history for easier design evaluation. Isight was also utilized for post-processing automation and design optimization.
Benefits:
Abaqus allowed the Nabtesco engineers to maximize gear contact area, while minimizing average stress contact. This resulted in a significantly more durable gear design that led to decreased maintenance and cost without requiring numerous physical experiments. With Isight, the design time was reduced drastically.
Wind turbines have become an iconic symbol of alternative energy with their tall, upright towers and graceful, spinning blades. Choosing a proper site for the towers is certainly the starting point for maximizing the output of a large wind farm. But for the most efficient conversion of the kinetic energy of wind into mechanical energy, or ‘wind power,’ additional control over the position of each turbine’s nacelle and blades is essential. This is the task of the yaw and pitch drives, which adjust the physical orientation of those components in response to fluctuations in the velocity and direction of prevailing breezes.
Located at the base of the nacelle, a yaw drive changes the direction which the nacelle faces. Where each blade meets the nacelle, a pitch drive changes the angle of the blades. Working in tandem, these computer-driven gear mechanisms automatically optimize the orientation of the turbine relative to the wind so power can be generated in the most efficient manner possible.
Watch this video interview with Zazuhiko Yokoji, CAE Manager of Nabtesco Corporation
Want to learn more?
Discover how Nabtesco uses realistic simulation to help improve strength and endurance of nacelle yaw and blade pitch drives.
