Can wind turbines generate the energy to produce their own components, or is it just a nice thought? Inductoheat Europe is working together with other strong partners in the EU-funded WINDUCTION project to make this a reality.
The main objective of this project is to design an environmentally friendly and less energy-intensive production route for planetary gears in wind turbine gearboxes, with the aim of avoiding the traditional, highly CO2-emitting carburizing process. Induction hardening instead of carburizing plays a key role in achieving this goal due to its high energy efficiency and use of electrical energy, which in turn can be generated by wind turbines.
In a first step in the WINDUCTION project, various steels were selected, characterized and samples produced. Inductoheat Europe developed the hardening process on M = 8 test gears and delivered test parts of all steel grades to the project partners for further evaluation. In a next step, a sample component (planetary gear M = 18.5) will be manufactured, for which Inductoheat Europe will again carry out the induction hardening.
Follow the progress of WINDUCTION on the project homepage: http://www.winduction.eu
Do you have any questions? If you are interested, please contact us at +49 (0) 7153/504-200 or by e-mail at info@inductoheat.eu. We will be happy to advise you!