About half of the wind turbines operate with double-fed asynchronous generators. The carbon brushes used in these generators can swell and cause damage under certain conditions. For this reason, Schunk has developed materials which adapt to the most diverse requirements of drives with carbon brushes, retain their shape and perfect the transmission of current to slip rings.
Extremely high or low temperatures as well as air humidity have a negative influence on carbon brushes in DC and AC motors and thus on the system performance. Components made of metal-containing or resin-bonded materials that change their volume under intensive conditions cause system downtimes, complex repair measures and thus high costs. Even more cost-intensive is work on installations that are difficult to access, for example at sea. At the same time, the advantages of generators with carbon brushes are obvious: They can be adapted much more flexibly to wind speeds and grid feed-in requirements and are therefore also in variable demand in international markets.
Thanks to the targeted selection of the right raw materials and state-of-the-art processes in production, Schunk has succeeded in optimizing materials so that they retain their shape even under extreme stress and do not swell. Customers thus profit from more operational reliability in power transmission, optimized maintenance cycles and thus lower costs. That is why manufacturers of drives of all kinds worldwide trust in Schunk materials, which fulfill their function even under the toughest operating conditions.
Learn more about swell-free carbon brushes for the wind industry in our white paper! Please send us an e-mail to robert.castellanos@schunk-group.com and we will send you the whitepaper shortly.