Research on dynamical characteristics of wind turbine gearboxes under varying load

Wind energy is believed as one of the most efficient clean renewable energies and is explored more often currently. Gearbox is an important part of wind turbines. The dynamic characteristics of wind turbine gearboxes are concerned by engineers since they affect the whole working performances and the service lives of wind turbines. The two-stage planetary and one-stage parallel shaft gear transmission is the most common gearboxes transmission structure among 1.5MW wind turbines. In this work, a dynamic model is established for a wind turbine gearbox with two-stage planetary and one-stage parallel shaft gear transmission structure. The external load excitations caused by varying wind speed was considered in the model. The dynamic response of the gear transmission system under steady load and varying load were studied, and changing rule of the gear meshing force was obtained. The results show that, virtual prototype technology is an efficient method to study the dynamic characteristics of the complex structure of wind turbine gearboxes.