It seems that nothing can hold back the power of the wind - unless, of course, it's the availability of rugged, reliable, specially designed gearboxes. In a typical wind turbine, the shaft connected to the rotor enters the gearbox which converts the slowly rotating, high-torque power in stages into high-speed, low-torque power for input into a generator. Sounds simple enough. But unlike the average industrial gearbox, subject to predictably minor speed and load variations, wind power gearboxes are constantly exposed to wild swings in load pattern, putting tremendous pressure on the gears and bearings. In addition, many of these wind towers are equipped with a second gearbox, subject to perhaps even greater loads, used to continuously "yaw" the rotors so they're always aligned to face a constantly changing wind direction, thus ensuring an optimum share of the wind energy.
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