Composite Disc Couplings for the Wind Turbine Industry
June 16, 2009 by CouplingTips
Filed under Disk
Plymouth, MN – Zero-Max, Inc.announces introduction of its Composite Disc Couplings for the wind turbine industry.
“These couplings withstand extreme misalignment while remaining torsionally stiff and have passed the ‘hell hole’ test at Tehachapi, California Wind Farm,” reports James Motz, member of the Wind Team for Zero-Max.
“The couplings were tested under conditions simulating a 20 year load spectrum of continuous operation. Once fatigue tested, the ‘hell hole’ location was selected for field testing in a wind turbine whereby the coupling would experience wind conditions in excess of 80 mph with continuous wind direction changes. The Zero-Max couplings survived these conditions that put over 50 wind turbines not using our coupling out of commission. The Zero-Max coupling continues to operate uninterrupted at this writing,” Mr. Motz added.
The Zero-Max wind turbine couplings are designed with composite disk packs at both ends of a center spacer. These patented designed disk packs provide the true strength and calculable flexibility of the coupling. The composite disk packs (flex elements) provide a distinct advantage over other coupling component designs by allowing a surplus of parallel and axial misalignment while remaining torsionally stiff through all harmonic ranges of the wind turbine’s oscillating load.
Depending on application, the Zero-Max’s center spacers can be machined out of steel, composite glass fiber or 6061-T6 aluminum. Through the use of Finite Element Analysis (FEA), these center spacers can be engineered to withstand in excess of 70,000 Nm of torque depending on the material selected.
Zero-Max wind turbine couplings have many additional design advantages. The flex elements electrically insulate the turbine’s generator from the gear box, eliminating amperage leak across the coupling thus preventing gear box damage. The coupling protects the generator by transferring lower reaction loads to the generator bearings. Also, the coupling’s composite material withstands all types of environmental elements including temperature extremes from -57 to +121°C and from moisture and chemicals native to wind turbines.
Zero-Max
www.zero-max.com
High Performance from Miniature Disc Couplings
March 5, 2009 by R. Nelson Parrish
Filed under Disk
Marlborough, MA – Ruland offers miniature disc couplings both in single and double disc styles. Disc couplings are high performance motion control couplings with zero-backlash, excellent speed capabilities up to 10,000 rpm, strength and torsional stiffness characteristics, as well as low inertia for today’s highly responsive systems. Disc couplings are often used in servomotor and lead screw applications. In addition, two single disc couplings are often used in tandem when greater misalignment or a longer distance is required such as on gantry systems.
Disc couplings are an assembly of two black anodized aluminum hubs, multiple flat stainless steel disc springs to transmit torque, and a center spacer for double disc styles. The thin discs allow for a substantial amount of misalignment between shafts, while remaining rigid under torque loads. Parallel misalignment is accommodated by the double disc style or by two single disc couplings used in tandem.
Double disc styles are available with either an anodized aluminum center spacer or an electrically isolating acetal center spacer. Both disc couplings types are offered in clamp style and set screw style, with standard outer diameters from 15mm to 57mm, and bore sizes from 1/8″ to 1 1/4″ in the inch series and 3mm to 30mm in the metric series. Couplings with different bores sizes including mixed inch and metric are available.
Disc couplings are part of Ruland’s complete product line which includes shaft collars and rigid couplings with precision honed bores and five types of zero-backlash motion control couplings: beam couplings, bellows couplings, oldham couplings, curved jaw couplings and miniature disc couplings.
