Press Release
May 2016

Michael Hastings
Sen. Application Engineer
Phone: +45 7741 2500
E-mail: press@bkvibro.com

Brüel & Kjær Vibro yet again demonstrates distinctive Condition Monitoring expertise at this year’s AWEA Windpower Conference and Exhibition

Reynir Hilmisson, diagnostic specialist from Brüel & Kjær Vibro’s Surveillance and Diagnostic Service Center in Denmark, will be presenting a poster on the “evaluation of bearing rotational looseness” at the AWEA Windpower Conference and Exhibition (New Orleans, May 23-26).

Bearing rotational looseness, or bearing creep, refers to rolling-element bearing inner race looseness on the shaft or outer race looseness on the bearing housing. In this work, the former case is considered. It most often occurs on the intermediate speed or high speed shaft of the helical gear stages of the multi-stage wind turbine gearboxes. A loose inner race can result in wear on the shaft that could require replacing the entire gearbox stage. 

The rotational looseness can also result in improper gear meshing, which can lead to broken gear teeth. In the case of broken teeth, the entire gearbox may have to be replaced including the entire lubrication oil cooling system (because of metal pieces present in the system). This costs approximately US$ 216,000 for a 5 day shutdown or US$ 276,000 for a one-month shutdown (this includes equipment, downtime, labor and crane, with the actual costs depending on a number of factors).  By comparison, if the inner bearing race fault was detected and the bearing replaced before a catastrophic failure occurs, this would cost only US$ 12,000 for a two-day shutdown!

A loose inner race is typically detected 8 months before service has to be done in most cases. Once detected, this condition is immediately considered at the highest severity and action has to be taken quickly to avoid wear on the shaft and damage to the gear teeth.

Reynir Hilmisson will give actual case study information, together with statistics on remaining useful life and a description of the measurements used for detecting the condition.

The Brüel & Kjær Vibro diagnostic specialists give several papers every year on various topics in condition monitoring of wind turbines. Based on both research and the experience of monitoring over 8,000 wind turbines worldwide, these papers mostly deal with promoting refined measurement techniques that give earlier, more reliable fault detection for some difficult potential failure modes of the wind turbine drive train. The aim is to reduce maintenance costs for the owners and operators. 

Poster Presentation “Evaluation of bearing rotational looseness in wind turbine gearbox parallel stages”, Wednesday, May 25, booth 4638 (Danish Pavilion) from 4:30 – 6:00 pm. 

On the presenter: Reynir Hilmisson, one of Brüel & Kjær Vibro’s diagnostic specialists for wind turbines, has been with the company for five years. Based in Denmark, Reynir has gained recognition as a condition monitoring expert by presenting papers at various conferences. He also provides support and training to the Brüel &Kjær Vibro Surveillance and Diagnostic Service Center in Sugarland, Texas.

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Company

Brüel & Kjær Vibro is the leading worldwide independent supplier of condition monitoring solutions for rotating machinery. The comprehensive product range comprises vibration sensors (acceleration, velocity and displacement), vibration monitors, portable instruments and rack-based plant-wide integrated monitoring solutions. These products plus a suite of comprehensive services fulfil the most demanding applications for safety, condition and performance monitoring of rotating machinery. Monitoring in the power industry is a strategic focus area with numerous applications in the conventional thermal, cogeneration, nuclear, hydro and wind energy sectors.

Based on 60 years of experience and a world-wide sales and support network, Brüel & Kjær Vibro’s monitoring solutions have successfully reduced downtime and maintenance costs and increased machine reliability for our customers world-wide. For more details, please refer to www.bkvibro.com.

Brüel & Kjær Vibro is part of Spectris plc, the leading supplier of productivity enhancing instrumentation and controls.