Tapered roller bearings for wind turbines
February 2025
Motion Control & Drives
A leading European manufacturer of wind turbines will use NSK’s tapered roller bearings with high load capacity in the gearboxes of its 15 MW class offshore wind turbines. The decision to specify the next-generation NSK roller bearings hinged on several key factors. The bearings offer an increase in load capacity of approximately 25% over the conventional product by optimising the roller crowning shape. The new bearings also deliver longer bearing life and lighter weight, making them perfect for reducing the construction and maintenance costs of large wind turbines.
By adopting these bearings, manufacturers in this sector can overcome engineering challenges specific to wind turbines. For instance, the optimised shape of the bearing’s roller crown helps to withstand the demanding operating conditions that wind turbine gearboxes endure. NSK leveraged its numerical simulation expertise to derive the shape and equalise the contact surface pressure between the rollers and the inner and outer rings. This capability prevents excessive surface pressure at the roller ends, even under high loads, facilitating 25% more load capacity and more than double the service life of the conventional product.
With the conventional bearing, excessive contact pressure at the roller ends is unavoidable, typically prompting the selection of larger bearings to handle the high loads. In contrast, pressure is uniform with the new roller bearing, negating the need for upsizing and allowing a weight reduction of more than 30% under the same usage conditions.
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