Reliably measuring large torques in wind power plants

HBM: Wind power plants, which are increasingly being developed in the offshore wind park sector, are continuously growing in size and power. This poses new challenges to measurement technology.

The expansion of wind energy is playing an important role in the current energy policy trend towards regenerative energies. A typical example is the measurement of torques in a wind power plant. These measurements are used to optimize the wind power plants and so increase efficiency. Even efficiency increases of just a few percent can result in savings worth millions.

As the rotor of a wind power plant rotates relatively slowly, a gear increases the speed to appropriate values for the downstream generator which then converts the wind energy into electrical energy. This means that the torque is extremely high, especially on the rotor side. Depending on the plant and wind conditions, torques in the range of several MN•m can occur.

The measurement technology specialist HBM supplies customized torque transducers for this sector with rotating or non-rotating designs and a nominal torque of 1.5 MN•m. Design proposals for even higher torques have also been developed and can be realized if requested by customers.