Wind turbine cooling technologies - Wind Power Generation and Wind Turbine Design - page 639

condenses in the condensation zone outside the nacelle. Finally the liquor condensate
returns to the evaporation zone with the assistance of gravity, which begins the
next evaporation procedure and so forth to perform effective cooling on the gear-
box. In winter, in order to avoid getting extremely cold lubricating oil caused by
the large cooling capacity of heat pipes, which is common in the northern cold
area, the gearbox is installed with a temperature controller, performing real-time
monitoring of the gearbox lubricating oil temperature. In addition, the heat pipe in
the system can adopt inclination arrangement to ensure the liquor condensate
returning to the evaporation zone smoothly, by which to ensure continuity and
validity of the cooling system. Besides, in the operation, the number and distribution
of heat pipes can be selected according to the real heat transfer capacity.
Compared with the current cooling system with a wind turbine gearbox and the
above three solutions, the wind turbine system adopting a heat pipe cooling gear-
box has many advantages to satisfy the wind turbine cooling demands, such as
simple structure, self-driven, high heat transfer effi ciency, low cost, easy to install
and repair, small need on lubricating oil and so forth. Besides, it can keep the gear-
box operating under the condition of optimum working temperature by selecting
proper working substance in the heat pipe.
The wind turbine cooling systems introduced above are only limited examples
of the future possible systems. With the development of the wind turbine technol-
ogy, various cooling solutions will emerge. However, only those cooling systems
with better cooling effect, higher economical effi ciency and lower power
consumption will be widespread in the future development.
References
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2003.
[2] Yin, L. & Liu, W.Z., Wind Power , Beijing: China Electric Power Press,
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[3] Ni, S.Y., Lecture on wind power, fi rst lecture: types and confi gurations of
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[4] Bryan d'Emil. Wind with miller, http://www.windpower.org/en/kids/index.
htm?d=1,2006-12-19
[5] Wang, D.G., The calculation of thermal power of the increasing gear box for
wind generator. Wind Power , (3) , pp. 22-24, 2003.
[6] Ye, H.Y., Control Technology on Wind Electricity Generation Unit , Beijing:
China Machine Press, pp. 51-52, 2002.
[ 7] Ding, S.N., Heat and Cooling of Large Electric Machine , Beijing: Science
Press, 1992.
[ 8] Wen, Z.W., Analysis on temperature fi eld of large synchronous machine based
on numerical method, Ph.D. Dissertation, Graduate University of Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an, 2006.
[9] Ni, T.J., Major cooling methods and features of large generator. Dongfang
Electric Review , 20(2) , pp. 31-37, 2006.