Equipment monitor on the job 24/7
July 6, 2009 by Paul Dvorak
Filed under Wind Maintenance
The SKF WindCon 3.0 monitor is engineered for easy installation on all turbine sizes and on land or at sea. The company adds that the monitor can be customized for the most demanding applications.
The SKF WindCon 3.0, a monitor for wind turbines, provides a way for wind farms to extend turbine maintenance intervals, manage maintenance resources, reduce unplanned downtime, predict remaining turbine service life, and decrease operating costs/kWh. The system, from SKF USA Inc, Kulpsville, Pa, monitors and tracks unbalanced rotor blades, misalignment, shaft deflections, mechanical looseness and foundation weakness, bearings and gears, tower and blade vibrations and resonance, electrical problems, and inadequate lubrication, among others.
This third generation design, monitors component conditions so maintenance decisions are based on actual machine conditions instead of arbitrary schedules.
The monitor connects to all turbine systems, including those revolving around centralized lubrication, blade monitoring, and gearbox oil condition. The equipment can continuously monitor single units or entire wind farms, even from afar using SKF WebCon software.
Windpower Engineering Editor Paul Dvorak is an experienced mechanical engineer. Paul has seven years of hands on mechanical engineering experience and 23 years of technical writing. Paul is constantly in correspondence with wind turbine manufacturers and wind power researchers. Thanks to this correspondence, he is able to write about wind engineering topics before any other editor in the wind space.
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