Schaeffner has further strengthened its position in the wind turbine gearbox bearing solutions market with the introduction of a sliding bearing arrangement with planetary gear support. Modern high-performance wind turbine transmissions are often equipped with multiple planetary gears to cope with increasing torque conditions. At the WindEnergy Hamburg WindEnergy exhibition, Schaeffler demonstrated advanced hydrodynamic sliding bearings. This series of sliding bearings can even help improve the power density of the gearbox in a very small installation space. The bearing copper sliding layer is only a few millimeters thick and is applied directly to the surface of planetary gear journal using additive manufacturing technology. The journal and the sliding layer are bonded by chemical agents, and the service life is up to decades.
Based on the finite element simulation process of the whole bearing system, Schaeffler uses elastic fluid dynamics (EHD) simulation tool to design the sliding bearing. The design process strives to achieve the thinnest lubrication film thickness and complete surface separation. To achieve zero wear conditions, Schaeffler creates a detailed technical design process for customers.
One of the ways gearbox manufacturers have addressed the problem of increasing torque density inside gears is to increase the number of planetary wheels at each level. In this way, higher torques can be transmitted in the same level of installation space. However, the rolling bearing solution has a space size limitation problem, even though the planetary gear size is small, it is still not compatible with applications. The diameter of the sliding bearing solution is small, which has a decisive advantage in this respect.
