• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.237-243
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• 2012

The thickness optimization of the gearbox housing for 5MW wind turbine is carried out with the help of the efficient structure analysis model and the approximation model of objective function. Wind turbine gearbox is a complex structural system composed of a number of gear trains, shafts, bearing and gearbox housing, requiring a tremendous number of elements for the structural analysis and design. In this paper, an effective analysis and design model considering the tooth stiffness of helical gears is proposed. It enables to significantly reduce the total element number and the analysis time. Through the numerical optimization of housing thickness making use of the effective gearbox model and the approximate model of objective function, the total weight of the gearbox housing is minimized. It has been observed from the numerical experiment that the approximation model is reliable and the optimization result is acceptable and verified analysis.