A Lubrication Reliability Source for Wind Power
Lubrication Engineers Inc (LE) was founded in 1951 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. LE manufactures and markets a line of heavy-duty, premium quality lubricants formulated from the best select base stocks. These high performance, specialist lubricants are all manufactured under an ISO 9001 certified quality system at a modern manufacturing complex in Wichita, Kansas. LE's objective has always been to increase its customers' profitability. LE consistently achieves this goal for its clients globally by improving their equipment life, extending their service intervals, and improving their energy efficiency and reliability, as well as reducing maintenance costs. LE products are available worldwide through LE International AG's constantly growing network of over 50 distributors.By Angus Macdonald, Export Sales & Marketing, Lubrication Engineers International AG .
{access view=!registered}Only logged in users can view the full text of the article.{/access}{access view=registered}LE’s key ‘building blocks’ are the R&D activities of its own Almasol Corporation, its range of unique and proprietary additives, use of superior mid-continent paraffinic base oils, consistently high quality of its lubricants from the US manufacturing facility, and ‘hands on’ consultative support from its global team of lubricant specialists.
A Vital Requirement for all Wind Turbines
Maintenance problems have always been an expensive overhead for industries – even more so for wind power stations due to the often isolated geographical location of wind farms as well as the heights involved and extreme operating conditions. The reliability of critical wind turbine applications such as gearboxes and bearings is a vital requirement for owners. The cost of each ‘downtime hour’ has a major impact on profits. Increasing numbers of wind turbine operators are now relying upon LE lubrication consultants to help solve their reliability issues. The company’s ‘World Class Reliability Programme’ focuses on optimising processes, reducing life cycle costs, and energy consumption as well as environmental impact.
Partnership and Teamwork
From the early beginnings in the Scandinavian wind industry nearly 20 years ago, LE has always worked closely with all parts of the industry, including OEMs and service companies as well as the individual customers. This teamwork has been pivotal in the collection of an increasing amount of unbiased field performance data that supports the performance claims of the company’s lubricants. LE shares this information with all interested parties to demonstrate the improvements that can be enjoyed just by converting damaged or threatened gears and bearings to a specialist lubricant.
Gear Oils for Wind Turbines
Gearboxes face demanding challenges and require gear lubricants that can provide sufficient wear and EP (extreme pressure) protection, anti-foaming, oxidation resistance and water separation. LE is able to offer several high performance gear oils. The ‘enhanced lubricant’ ALMASOL 600 Series has been used for more than 20 years in the industry – results include hundreds of turbines enjoying substantially longer oil drain intervals, reduced gearbox oil temperatures of 5 to 12°C and reduced gearbox bearing temperatures of 5 to 8°C, as well as reduced amounts of wear metal on magnetic filters and dramatically diminished noise levels. The semi-synthetic LE 1600 DUOLEC Series is the very latest technology now available after more than 30 years of development. LE’s petroleum lubricants contain 100% mid-continent paraffinic base oils. Using special refining techniques, these base oils have a saturated molecular structure similar to the synthetic polyalphaolefins (PAOs). Thus, they offer excellent oxidation resistance, superior lubricity, long life and few deposits/sludge.
Greases
The variety of bearings in wind turbines result in different operating conditions and challenges. LE’s ALMAGARD range is a vari-purpose grease which due to its ALMASOL and QUINPLEX additives is able to handle the different LETS (Load, Environment, Temperature, Speed) being experienced. Its excellent tackiness, rust and corrosion inhibitors and EP capabilities provide outstanding bearing protection at all times.
Open Gear Lubricants
Each turbine has various severe ‘open gear’ applications that require a quality EP lubricant that will stay in place: yaw top teflons, yaw gear sliding surfaces and yaw gear teeth are all
successfully lubricated with LE’s specialist open gear grease LE 5180 PYROSHIELD. It was specifically designed for such applications and benefits from the performance of the ALMASOL anti-wear additive.
LE’s Reliability Partners
LE does not just sell lubricants; its team of trained, experienced consultants offer all the company’s wind industry clients reliability solutions which include automatic lubrication systems for application of grease, installation of magnetic filters to check on diminishing wear levels, provision of sight glasses for gearboxes so that water contamination can be identified and drained off (because of the water separation ability of LE gear oils), and installation of desiccant breathers to gearboxes in order to absorb water and other airborne contamination. Other services include the possible changing of mechanical valves and the calibrating of the parameters of the oil cooling system and oil pumps.
A Reliable Future?
The continuous rapid growth of the global wind industry shows no signs of slowing. Wind OEMs are under pressure to develop bigger and more powerful turbines which can demonstrate higher levels of efficiency and cost-effective power. Central to this growth and popularity is the ‘reliability’ of wind power. Specialist lubricant companies such as LE are proving that it is possible to increase the service life of turbines while also reducing the amount of lubricant and energy consumed or maintenance work required.{/access}
