Innovative Concepts for Grinding Wind Power Energy Gears

摘要

Over the past years wind power energy is gaining higher importance to reduce CO_2 emissions and thus counteract global warming. The development of wind power engines is driven by increased performance which requires larger wind turbines and gear boxes. The quality demands of those gears are increasing while the production cost must decrease. This requires new production methods to grind the gears at low cost and a high quality level. Profile grinding is known as a process to achieve the highest possible quality even for complex flank modifications while threaded wheel grinding is known for high productivity. New machine concepts make it now possible to use both advantages at the same time. The reduction of non productive auxiliary time is a very important key aspect to becoming more productive. The article will show the newest developments to reduce the overall cycle time. This includes aspects to reduce setup time, idle time, productive time as well as dressing time.