Piston driven yaw mechanism

Abstract

The current thesis presents a piston driven yaw mechanism for wind turbines. Traditionally the yaw mechanismhas been one of the mayor contributors to down time and repair has been costly. The proposed designaims to improve the reliability of the yaw mechanism by reducing the point loads and by using hydrauliccylinders instead electrical motors to generate torque. In addition the design is modular allowing the mechanismto be disassembled and components to be replaced without the requirement of complicated or costlymachinery. The current thesis presents an analysis of the state of the art and discusses concepts which maysolve some of the challenges with existing yaw mechanisms. Further on a conceptual model of the mechanismis developed. Modelling and simulation is carried out to verify the suitability of the concept. It is found thatthe proposed yaw mechanism may be suitable for modern wind turbines and that the design may increasethe reliability and reduce cost of repair compared to current solutions.