But can that wind turbine endure the gusty wind? Nabtesco Corporation of Japan uses Abaqus finite element analysis to improve strength and endurance in wind turbine gears and Isight to optimize their design.

As the world transitions to greener forms of energy, wind power has emerged as one of the leading alternatives to traditional power plants. To keep up with the world’s appetite for energy, each wind turbine needs to be both as efficient and dependable as possible.

When Nabtesco needed to optimize their pinion gears, the part that transmits power from the drive to the nacelle, they turned to SIMULIA's solutions. Their engineers utilized Abaqus to analyze the stress and contact area on the gear teeth, and developed their own subroutine to model the history of both the stress and contact area on the model. With the help of Isight, Nabtesco was also able to significantly reduce design time, perform design optimization, and process automation. The result was an optimized gear design that is significantly more robust than the previous one.

Check out Nabtesco's  video on YouTube or read their  case study from SIMULIA Community News. And if you want more, then check out their  technical paper from the 2012 SCC.