One of the main cause of damages for wind turbine power plants is certainly constituted by lightning. Direct and indirect events can indeed produce damages and malfunctions of electrical and mechanical components. Concerning mechanical components, blades and bearings are the most involved parts. In particular, lightning-damages produced at bearings positioned at the mechanical interface between rotating parts of the wind turbine, can result in high costs, considering the difficulties involved in the replacement of such components. The paper presents a numerical and an analytical model of wind turbine main shaft bearings aimed at calculate their electrical impedance along with their experimental validation. These models provide useful criteria for the design of wind turbines lightning protection systems (LPS). In this respect, the paper presents also the development of a specific LPS for the protection of wind turbine bearings and the relevant effectiveness analysis obtained by means of experimental tests. ©2007 IEEE.
Title
Models of wind-turbine main shaft bearings for the development of specific lightning protection systems
Published in
2007 IEEE Lausanne POWERTECH, Proceedings
Series
2007 IEEE Lausanne POWERTECH
Pages
783-789
Date
2007
Note
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy Leitner S.p.A., Italy
Conference code: 73346
Export Date: 25 April 2012
Source: Scopus
Art. No.: 4538415
doi: 10.1109/PCT.2007.4538415
Language of Original Document: English
Correspondence Address: Paolone, M.; Department of Electrical Engineering, University of BolognaItaly; email: mario.paolone@mail.ing.unibo.it
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Sponsors: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Power and Electronics Society
Record creation date
2012-05-01
