Avoiding Shocks to the System
To a thunderstorm a wind tower appears as a lightning rod, meaning that generators are highly susceptible to the effects of lightning. They are...
Creative Condition Monitoring
Condition monitoring is a machine maintenance tool that is becoming a component of long–term service packages provided by some wind turbine manufacturers. In general,...
Monitoring for Maintenance
In a recent report covering the last quarter of 2008 in Europe, 54 gearbox failures attributed to either wear or failure equaled 8,177 hours...
Vibration-Based Wind Tower Foundation Design
This is a case study of multiple wind turbine towers located in different villages in Alaska where severe arctic weather conditions exist. Initially, a...
Achieving Excellence in Gearbox Design
Business is booming at Moventas, a leading tier-one supplier of gearboxes for wind turbines. Company sales increased 40 percent last year, reflecting tremendous growth...
Maximizing Energy Storage
Increasingly, the energy future is blowing in the wind. Clean wind energy is America’s fastest-growing energy source, expanding by a record 8,300 megawatts in...
Wind Resource Site Assessment
As interest in harnessing wind energy grows in the United States and around the world, several trends and events are converging in support of...
Getting Grounded When Lightning Strikes
Most of us understand that wind turbines are ideal lightning attractions, and that grounding turbine systems is critical to avoiding catastrophic damage. Lightning is...
