Investigation of the relationship between main-bearing loads and wind field characteristics

This paper investigates the relationship between main bearing loads and the characteristics of the incident wind field in which a wind turbine is operating. For a 2MW wind turbine model, fully aeroelastic multibody simulations are performed in 3D turbulent wind fields across the wind turbines operational envelope. Hub loads are extracted and then injected into a simplified drivetrain model of a single main-bearing configuration whose parameters are determined using finite element software. The main bearing reaction loads and load ratios from the simplified model are presented and analysed. The results indicate that there is a strong link between wind field characteristics and the loading experienced by a single main-bearing, with more damaging load ratios seen to occur in low turbulence and high shear wind conditions.