LOAD ASSUMPTIONS FOR THE DESIGN OF ELECTRO MECHANIC PITCH SYSTEMS

Andreas Manjock (Manj@gl-group.com), Jan-Bernd Franke (JBF@gl-group.com),

Germanischer Lloyd Industrial Services GmbH, Steinhoeft 9, 20459 Hamburg, Germany
Herbert Hemker (hemker@oat-gmbh.com),
OAT GmbH, Stohlmanns Heide 15, 32278 Kirchenlengern, Germany

ABSTRACT

For the design of electro mechanic pitch drives and the respective gears the applied design loads have to be derived from a
comprehensive simulation model including blade bearing friction, inertias of the blade and the rotating drive components.
The stand alone blade root pitch moment is insufficient for estimating pitch drive loading. In this study an approach is
introduced which derives the torque at the drive pinion meshing into the toothing of the blade bearing from existing time
series. An analysis of the relative toothing damage with respect to pitch angle positions shows that the first 20° of the
toothing periphery have to bear about three-quarter of the total life time damage. The design loads for the pitch drive motor
are adequately represented by the so called pitch actuator torque (RMS-spectrum). Further, several levels of blade bearing
friction have been evaluated to determine the sensitivity of bearing friction on pitch drive loading. It appears that the
application of a friction model has a significant impact on pitch drive loading, whereas, the accuracy of the load dependent
friction parameters actually considered is of minor importance.

1 Introduction

Most Wind Turbines (WT) use pitch regulated rotor blades for power limitation and manoeuvres, e.g. start-up, shut-down.
Further, the pitch system is the main braking system due to independent control of the blades. With this duplex function the
pitch system represents a central unit within the control and safety system of a WT. The performance of the pitch system
significantly influences the energy yield and the structural loads affecting the WT. For the development of WTs it has to be
checked whether the assumed pitch actions used within the global load simulation can be met by the mechanical and
electrical design of the pitch system components. In this study the focus is on electro mechanical pitch systems, hydraulic
systems have not been considered here.

2 Design of electro mechanic pitch systems

The pitch system consists of four main components: (1) blade bearing, (2) gear-box, (3) motor and (4) drive control unit. The
drive control unit receives signals from the WT´s control system and calculates a drive signal for the motor. The power of the
motor is than transformed into speed and torque by the gearbox. A pinion is mounted on the output shaft which meshes with
the toothing of the blade bearing. The rotor blade is attached to the blade bearing by bolts. A simplified mechanic model of
the pitch system is illustrated in Figure 1. Typical tooth damage at the blade bearing inner toothing is show in Figure 2.

Photo: GL Inspection Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt

Figure 1: Pitch system components Figure 2: Damage of a blade bearing toothing

3 Simulation model for pitch system

The dynamic behaviour of the WT and its controller is simulated with aero-elastic codes which calculating loads in time
domain [2]. They generate load assumptions taking different wind conditions and maneuvers into account.
In most cases the pitch system is simplified within the global simulation model of the WT and the characteristics of the pitch
drive control unit is neglected within the global load analysis. The intention of this work is to use the generated time series of
load- and state variables to generate load assumptions, i.e. spectra and extreme values, for the design of electro-mechanical
pitch systems. Therefore the existing model is modified to gather load assumptions for pitch drive components like gearbox
and blade bearing mesh.
The simulation model used in this study comprises the entire WT including flexible blade and tower structures and a flexible
drive train. The aerodynamic forces which act along the blade span and the mass forces from rotation and deflection result in
the blade root pitch moment MZB. These are located at the interface of blade root and blade bearing.

The blade bearing enables the blade to rotate around its longitudinal axis. In general, the friction of bearings is estimated by a
parametric equation applying empirical factors which are dependent on the bending moment, and the axial and radial forces.
The simulations applied in this study use the common relation for the load dependent bearing friction.

⎡μ ⋅ M ZB ⎤
M R = ⎢ Bend + μ Axial ⋅ FAxial + μ Radial ⋅ FRadial ⎥ ⋅ DRotor + M R 0
⎣ DRotor ⎦
The three friction parameters μ were varied to determine their influence on pitch drive loads. Four friction models were used
in selected fatigue and extreme load cases: load cases comprising no friction, medium friction according to bearing
specification, and ±50% deviation from medium friction.

The toothing of the blade bearing and the drive pinion are simply represented by the respective gear ratio iPB. The inertia of
the moving blade bearing ring and its toothing is integrated in the total blade pitch inertia JRB. The pinion inertia on the other
hand is allotted to the pitch drive mass system.

The pitch drive unit consists of an integrated gear box and an electric motor. The pitch drive unit is represented by the
specific drive inertia JPD.

A local control unit is present on most WTs’ pitch drives to preserve admissible operating margins of the drive. In this study
these margins have not been defined in order to detect partial over-loading of the drive by extreme torque/speed demands of
the WT.

The definition of the orientation of load components used in this study is that the blade root torque and blade bearing friction
torque work in opposite directions. The blade root torque’s positive direction is defined according to GL Coordinate System
[1] turning the rotor blade to feather position as shown in the mechanical model of Figure 3. The pitch angle positive
direction is defined according to the traditional convention corresponding to the positive angle of attack at aviation airfoils.
This definition has been adopted for wind turbines.

Figure 3: Split of mechanical model Formatiert: Schriftart: Arial

Narrow, 9 pt, Fett

Neither springs nor elastic properties have been considered within the mechanic pitch system. Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt,
Fett

4 Design Load Cases (DLC)

Fatigue and extreme load conditions need to be analysed for the design of WTs. For this anaylsis the relevant DLCs for a
multi-megawatt WT are identified to design an electro mechanic pitch system.

For calculating operating conditions a set of time series using turbulent wind in a range of 3 m/s to 25 m/s according to GL
Wind Guideline [1] have been applied. Idling conditions beyond cut-out wind speed as well as start and stop maneuvers have
been considered. The 10-minutes time series have been weighted by a Rayleigh-distribution to account for the portion of
wind bins during 20 year life time.
For determining extreme loads three design DLCs according to GL Wind Guideline load case table [1] have been identified
with respect to maximum loading of the pitch system. Hence, load cases with an inactive pitch system such as parking or
idling cases have been excluded. From a previous sensitivity study the load cases DLC1.5 (extreme 1-year-gust EOG1 and
simultaneous grid loss), DLC1.6 (operating during an extreme 50-year-gust EOG50) and DLC2.2 (emergency stop following
a collective pitch runaway triggered by rotor overspeed sensor) have been found responsible for the maximum pitch system
loads.

5 Data Post-processing

Mechanical and electrical loads are necessary for dimensioning pitch system components. In this work a procedure is
presented to analyse the huge amount of simulation data to find load spectra and extreme loads for blade bearing mesh, gear
box, motor and control unit of the pitch system.

For finding appropriate loads for dimensioning the toothing of the pitch gear the so called mesh torque MM is of interest. The
torque acting at the interface between rotor blade mass system and pitch drive mass system is not a standard output variable
in the simulation code used. Therefore an analysis for obtaining mesh torque time series was carried out by applying the
following relation.

M M = M ZB − M R + J RB ⋅ α&&P = i P ⋅ M PDA − 2P ⋅ J PD ⋅ α&&P

The characteristics of the mesh torque loads are significantly different compared to the blade root moment, on one hand, and
the pitch actuator torque, on the other hand, caused by the consideration of friction and inertia moments.

Many simulation codes apply the load sensor “Pitch Drive Actuator Torque”, here called MPDA. This torque represents the
required torque set by the global WT controller. Possible limits of the local motor control unit are not considered. The MPDA
is suitable for estimating the motor loading. Especially the time duration distribution (LDD) of MPDA RMS-values is one of
the design drivers for the drive motor.

An analysis of the loading of the relevant pitch angles during the life time revealed that about 75% of the blade bearing
toothing damage is limited to the range of 0 to 20 degree pitch angles, see Figure 4.

Figure 4: Damage distribution along the inner blade bearing toothing

The blade root moment MZB is used for dimensioning the blade root structure and the bolted connection between blade and
blade bearing. However, it is not suitable for finding pitch system load characteristics since the influence of the blade inertia,
the blade bearing friction, as well as gear and the drive inertia is generally neglected. The result of the analysis confirms that
these load components have significant impact on the loading of the pitch system.
The blade bearing friction MR of the investigated reference multi-megawatt WT reaches levels of the aerodynamic blade
torque during normal operation. Thus the bearing friction protects the actuator during negative blade torque while it
multiplies the loading of the actuator during positive acting aero torque. In this study four levels of blade bearing friction
have been simulated covering no friction, medium friction stated by the bearing manufacturer and ±50% of medium friction.
The comparison of the calculated damages due to the different friction levels showed the expected higher damages during
positive mesh torque for the cases with active blade bearing friction. However, the differences between the -50%, 100% and
150% friction models was found rather small.

Additionally, the thermal loading of the drive motor has been calculated by analysing the RMS-values (Root Mean Square)
of the pitch actuator torque for all normal operation load cases. In Figure X the RMS(MPDA) is shown for all wind classes and
different bearing friction levels. The highest thermal loading of the pitch drive has been found in our test configuration at the
wind speeds Vhub = 15m/s and 17m/s, respectively. The efficiency of the gear box and the bearing mesh has been taking into
account. The calculation with an increased bearing friction delivered, as expected, a higher thermal loading. Therefore the
blade bearing friction should be considered.

Thermal Belastung
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desdrive motor
Pitchantrieb Formatiert: Schriftart:
(Standard) Arial, 10 pt, Fett
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Formatiert: Schriftart: 9 pt
Figure 5: Thermal loading for different levels of blade bearing friction

6 Outlook

The reproduction of the pitch system in WT load simulation is the key to generate realistic loads for the whole WT. The
reduction of simulation data to load spectra allows a reliable design of all pitch system components. A complete analysis
procedure is inevitable to evaluate the influence of site specific load conditions as well as single pitch control strategies.
Additionally, detailed drive train models using multi body approaches coupled with finite element methods benefit from a
realistic model of the pitch system.

To validate the presented simulations open field measurements on operating WTs is crucial. Particularly, detailed information
at different locations of the pitch system like pinion shaft torque or blade bearing torque would be of interest.

Figure 6 shows that the motor torque and speed ranges have been exceeded in some extreme load cases. Therefore, the
influence of the local pitch control unit which limits the torque and speed conversion of the motor should be evaluated in
more detail. It has to be analysed if these restrictions have an effect on the final pitch speed and pitch position of the rotor
blade and if possible delays of the pitch activity can cause higher loads.
Figure 6: Operating stages of the pitch drive actuator

7 References

[1] Richtlinie für die Zertifizierung von Windenergieanlagen“, Germanischer Lloyd (GL), Ausgabe 2003 mit
Ergänzung 2004

[2] Garrad Hassan and Partners, “GH Bladed, Version 3.72”