Mass balancing of wind turbines
OwnerSteffen Bungeinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In a method for balancing a wind turbine where a plurality of blades are mounted on a rotor hub an annular blade bearing which allows the blade to pivot, in response to a detection of an imbalance caused by unbalanced loads applied by the blades weight is added to one or more of the blades to counter the imbalance. The weight is added by mounting a weight body to the blade at the blade bearing. The weight body comprises a plurality of individual arcuate weight elements in a stack attached to the outer race of the bearing a plurality of brackets, each engaged onto a selected one of the screw fasteners connecting the bearing to the hub. Each bracket includes a collar engaged onto a selected one of the screw fasteners and a post forming the engagement portion onto which the weight body is engaged.
Claims12
A method for balancing a wind turbine where the turbine comprises:
- a rotor hub mounted on a nacelle for rotation about a generally horizontal rotor axis;
- a plurality of blades mounted on the rotor hub for driving the rotation of the rotor hub about the rotor axis in response to wind impacting on the blades;
- each blade being mounted on the rotor hub by an annular blade bearing which allows the blade to pivot about a longitudinal axis of the blade to change pitch of the blade as required for wind conditions;
- the method comprising:
- in response to a detection of an imbalance in the rotation of the rotor hub caused by unbalanced loads applied by the blades to the rotor hub, adding weight to one or more of the blades to counter the imbalance;
- where the weight is added to said one or more blades by mounting a weight body to the blade at the blade bearing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.