Wind turbine reliability issues are often linked to failures of contacting components, such as: bearings, gears, and actuators. Therefore, special consideration to tribological design in wind turbine systems is critical. This seminar has two main functions: to provide an overview of tribology fundamentals relevant to wind turbines, and to review the critical tribological issues and current R&D activities to address these issues. The invited speakers cover a range of topics including:

• Materials
• Surface engineering
• Lubrication
• Computational modeling
• Bearing failure
• System design
• Oil filtration

Additional focus is on a specific mode of bearing failure, referred to as irregular white-etching cracks. Researchers from bearing companies, academia, consultants and laboratories discuss the recent work in understanding this detrimental failure mode. The intended audience to this seminar includes technical specialists and engineers from wind turbine/component OEMs, wind farm owner/operators, lubrication suppliers/formulators, and R&D engineers from industry and academia/labs.

Two seminars have been held: one in 2014 at Argonne National Laboratory and another in 2011 at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.