Mechanical Control Methods in Wind Turbine Operations for Power Generation

Abstract

This paper investigates various mechanical control methods used for controlling wind turbine (WT), which play an important role in WT power generating stations. The gear control, blade pitch angle control and yaw control methods are the major content of this paper. A simplified methodology is used for gear design to obtain the speed of driven gear in a practical case. Some important issues related to gear system are investigated such as, scoring, corrosion, spalling, gear noise etc. The classifications of wind turbines and its blade pitch angle control regions are identified for fluctuating wind speed. Furthermore, the importance of yaw control to extract wind power is explained and wind speed/ directions sensor is discussed for yaw controlling. 