SPONSORS OF THE OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE FEATURE
SERVICING OFFSHORE WIND FARMS
With the rapid increase in the number of offshore turbines and the increasing age of some of them, servicing and maintenance is becoming a big industry and the most practical way of accessing them is by boat.
VISIBILITY A big safety concern is visibility out of the wheelhouse/bridge windows in poor weather. Wipers are inefficient at the best of times and only cover part of the glazing.
POLYMER COATING TECHNOLOGY The practical answer to the problem lies in Polymer Coating Technology.
The first Polymer coating was developed by Howard Ohlhausen, from Illinois in the late 1960’s. A wide range of similar
products have come on the market over the years, and are usually named using a combination of words like rain, shield, glass, clear, invisible, maid, mate etc. In terms of performance they range from cheap domestic ‘throwaway’ products all the way to expensive industrial contractor only applied systems. Some of the best
THE FIRST UP-TOWER
In November 2011 , Moventas completed a full-helical stage repair to a 1.5MW turbine gearbox. Nothing unusual about this, other than the fact that this repair took place up-tower at a wind farm near Berlin.
known ones within this range are RainX, Clearshield and Kleentec.
THE
TECHNOLOGY When the Polymer solution is applied to the glass it chemically bonds to the surface, sealing all the pits and valleys and give the surface similar properties to that of a ‘non- stick’ frying pan.
Another simple analogy is to think of glass as being like rough sandpaper. Rub dirt into a piece of sandpaper, and it is very difficult to wash off. However, pour varnish onto a piece of sandpaper, let it dry, and then rub dirt onto the surface, and it will wash off very easily. This is exactly what polymer coatings do to glass.
EUROPEAN GEARBOX FULL HELICAL STAGE REPAIR AND REPLACEMENT
This was the first example of such a repair in Europe, however the process had been pioneered and perfected in the USA, where the comany service teams have been carrying out repairs since March 2011. The service team from the USA assisted their German colleagues in the operation, with key personnel providing direction and knowledge transfer.
CMaS Sun pinion is disassembled from hollow shaft
CONDITION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM The repair required was for replacement of the high speed, intermediate speed and slow speed sections along with the sun pinion. At the time of
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the repair the Moventas CMaS condition management system was also fitted to the gearbox and drivetrain. The CMaS was fitted to provide instant information that would show the effectiveness of the repair and to provide long term predictive and preventative maintenance capabilities.
CAREFUL PRE-PLANNING As with many turbines, there can be a number of different versions of the same gearbox platform used. This proved to be the case in this turbine where the original gear version was a Moventas PLH-1100 and previous repairs had been made to later revisions, however with careful pre- planning and an experienced team the repair went ahead and was completed in one week on site as planned. This is longer than a repair of this type would normally take, however as this was the first repair of its kind for their European team added to the fact the gear was a different version, extra time was provisioned and taken.
REPAIR DETAIL As it was not required to remove the entire gearbox from the nacelle a much smaller crane was used to lower individual components to the ground and the mobile workstation. Here the components were able to be cleaned and inspected for damage and wear. All damaged components were replaced with new ones. The new components were returned to the nacelle where they were refitted and aligned.
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