Design and analysis of wind turbine nacelle transport frame for road transport

Abstract

The Wind turbine is a Machine which produces electricity by using Kinetic energy of the wind and convert to mechanical energy. There are many mechanical components involves such as blades, hub, Nacelle etc. Transportation of wind turbine components is a very critical process due to its large size and weight which to be handled with precaution. This paper deals with the transportation of wind turbine nacelle transport frame from manufacturing site to erection site. Road conditions in India have many bumps and uneven road surfaces which cause sudden impact and vibration are two major factors which have a direct effect on a nacelle is being transported by road. The vibration that occurs in Nacelle structures and its transport frame is undesirable, not only because of the resulting unpleasant motions, noise and dynamic stresses which may lead to fatigue and failure of the structure. The result of the vibrational condition causes damage to nacelle bed frame. The Nacelle bedframe with transport frame is taken in the consideration and checked for its performance for road vibration condition. A transport frame model with a bed frame and yaw top is modeled using 3D software Pro/Engineer wildfire 5 and Analyzed using analysis software code called Ansys Workbench 16. It is usually much easier to analyze and modify a structure at the design stage than modify a structure with undesirable vibration characteristics after it has been built. For the damages caused to a wind turbine nacelle bed frame due to random vibration, the operating frequency of the existing transport frame was modified and dynamic analysis has been performed to prevent such damage.