TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluation of fatigue crack propagation of gears considering uncertainties in loading and material properties
AU - Endeshaw, Haileyesus B.
AU - Ekwaro-Osire, Stephen
AU - Alemayehu, Fisseha M.
AU - Dias, João Paulo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 by the authors.
PY - 2017/11/29
Y1 - 2017/11/29
N2 - Failure prediction of wind turbine gearboxes (WTGs) is especially important since the maintenance of these components is not only costly but also causes the longest downtime. One of the most common causes of the premature fault of WTGs is attributed to the fatigue fracture of gear teeth due to fluctuating and cyclic torque, resulting from stochastic wind loading, transmitted to the gearbox. Moreover, the fluctuation of the torque, as well as the inherent uncertainties of the material properties, results in uncertain life prediction for WTGs. It is therefore essential to quantify these uncertainties in the life estimation of gears. In this paper, a framework, constituted by a dynamic model of a one-stage gearbox, a finite element method, and a degradation model for the estimation of fatigue crack propagation in gear, is presented. Torque time history data of a wind turbine rotor was scaled and used to simulate the stochastic characteristic of the loading and uncertainties in the material constants of the degradation model were also quantified. It was demonstrated that uncertainty quantification of load and material constants provides a reasonable estimation of the distribution of the crack length in the gear tooth at any time step.
AB - Failure prediction of wind turbine gearboxes (WTGs) is especially important since the maintenance of these components is not only costly but also causes the longest downtime. One of the most common causes of the premature fault of WTGs is attributed to the fatigue fracture of gear teeth due to fluctuating and cyclic torque, resulting from stochastic wind loading, transmitted to the gearbox. Moreover, the fluctuation of the torque, as well as the inherent uncertainties of the material properties, results in uncertain life prediction for WTGs. It is therefore essential to quantify these uncertainties in the life estimation of gears. In this paper, a framework, constituted by a dynamic model of a one-stage gearbox, a finite element method, and a degradation model for the estimation of fatigue crack propagation in gear, is presented. Torque time history data of a wind turbine rotor was scaled and used to simulate the stochastic characteristic of the loading and uncertainties in the material constants of the degradation model were also quantified. It was demonstrated that uncertainty quantification of load and material constants provides a reasonable estimation of the distribution of the crack length in the gear tooth at any time step.
KW - Crack propagation
KW - Dynamic analysis
KW - Fatigue
KW - Finite element modeling
KW - Gear
KW - Uncertainty quantification
KW - Wind turbine gearbox
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85035329295&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su9122200
DO - 10.3390/su9122200
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85035329295
VL - 9
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
SN - 2071-1050
IS - 12
M1 - 2200
ER -