2021 ZWZ Group Made a Breakthrough in the Research and Development of High-power Wind Bearings

On October 18, 2021, the Beijing International Wind Energy Exhibition exhibited a number of wind power generation equipment independently developed by China. Among them, China’s first onshore 4-megawatt-class wind turbine single-row cone was successfully developed by ZWZ Group. The structural main shaft bearing has filled the domestic gap and marked the key progress of China's high-power wind power generation equipment technology.

The annual international wind energy exhibition is co-sponsored by China Renewable Energy Industry Association, China Wind Energy Association, and Global Wind Energy Council, and is known as the wind vane and barometer of China's wind power industry. This year's exhibition exhibited the most advanced wind power system components, wind turbine components and other equipment in China, and nearly 700 manufacturers participated in the exhibition.

It is understood that the main shaft bearings of high-power wind turbines have the characteristics of good axial positioning and high load-bearing capacity. They are the mainstream technology for fan assembly at present, but they also have problems such as large size, difficult processing, complex heat treatment processes, and difficult bearing assembly. This is the direction that domestic related manufacturers have been tackling. Therefore, domestic companies have always used imported bearings to assemble fans.

To this end, the ZWZ Group has joined forces with fan manufacturers, universities, and other technical problems to break through technical problems such as bearing cage design, temperature field analysis, and heat treatment processing. The mass production standard signifies that China has broken through the technical problem of stuck neck in the main shaft bearings of large megawatt wind turbines. Therefore, ZWZ Group has become one of the internationally competitive companies in the field of wind turbine bearings.

According to reports, ZWZ Group began to develop fan bearings in the 1990s.

This is the first enterprise in China to produce supporting bearings for wind turbines. It has independently developed a complete series of wind turbine supporting bearings such as high-precision yaw bearings, pitch bearings, spindle bearings, gearbox bearings, drive bearings, generator bearings, etc., which has greatly improved the independent innovation ability of China's fan bearings.

As the carbon peak and carbon neutral goals are proposed, and China will build a new power system with new energy as the main body, the scale of new energy such as wind power will continue to expand, and the demand for wind turbines will continue to grow. At present, China has become the world's largest producer and demander of wind turbines. However, many core components of wind turbines, especially high-power wind turbines, still rely on imports. Domestic companies such as ZWZ Group have been focusing on these key technologies and have gradually achieved technological breakthroughs.

According to Zhang Lina, assistant to the general manager of the wind power bearing division of ZWZ Group, the group has established an international R&D test platform, introduced a large number of digital and dynamic simulation analysis technologies, and established R&D bases in China, Europe and the United States, with internationally leading Design and test integration and R&D and manufacturing integration capabilities. In recent years, ZWZ Group has focused on strengthening the research and development of key technologies including the core components of high-power wind turbines. At the Beijing International Wind Energy Conference, ZWZ Group displayed more than 20 new products developed in recent years, including 2.5 MW wind turbine main shaft bearings, offshore 5 MW wind turbine gearbox bearings, 2 MW generator bearings, High-end bearing products such as offshore 8 MW drive bearings, of which 4 MW and 5 MW wind turbine main shaft bearings are at the world's advanced level.

At present, ZWZ Group has 9 major production bases, 24 manufacturing plants, 13 product R&D centers, 13 materials research laboratories, and 16 testing laboratories at home and abroad. It also owns two major bearing brands, ZWZ and KRW, and 10 Large categories, more than 20,000 categories of bearing products, products cover automotive vehicles, rail transit, wind power new energy, metallurgical heavy machinery, construction machinery, transmission machinery, precision machinery, cement machinery, industrial equipment, special equipment and other fields.