Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG

The right solution for every wind turbine
Cost-effective wind turbines need reliable components. With our comprehensive understanding of systems, we offer the right solution for every wind turbine – from rolling bearings with the longest service life to ready-to-install, intelligent systems with integrated sensor technology and digital services for optimal operation of the turbines.
Special rolling bearing greases and a wide range of services and products for maintenance and condition monitoring round off our range. With predictive maintenance, we are expanding conventional condition monitoring approaches to include a look into the "plant future" and thus offering new opportunities to increase efficiency and reduce electricity generation costs.
Schaeffler Wind Power Standard
With this Schaeffler standard for products and processes, we ensure the highest quality and reliability worldwide and also offer quality standards for wind power that are already being successfully implemented in the automotive industry and aerospace.
Optimal design with state-of-the-art calculation and simulation programs
Our experts work closely with wind turbine developers, manufacturers and operators. State-of-the-art calculation and simulation programs ensure an optimal design of the wind turbine bearings: from the individual rolling bearing and its components to the connection design and the complete drive train, which is mapped and optimized with specially developed multi-body simulation programs.
Realistic tests on Schaeffler's "Astraios"
With its realistic load simulation, Schaeffler's own ASTRAIOS large-scale bearing test rig has been providing valuable insights since 2011, which are used for the development of new bearing solutions and for the optimization of simulation and calculation models. Based on this uniquely long-standing experience with the testing of rotor bearings for wind turbines in the multi-megawatt class, we have now developed a robustness test that represents the events, loads and stresses of the 20 to 25 years of operation of a wind turbine in just a few months and depicts the specific dynamics of the rotor bearing load. In this way, we make a decisive contribution to a faster and more reliable design of wind turbines and increase their economic efficiency and safety.
Improve plant availability and the overall system with Industry 4.0
In order to further improve the rolling bearings in the drive train and the overall system and to optimize plant operation, real operating data offer great potential. Together with our customers, we develop sensor concepts in order to be able to record relevant influencing variables on damage mechanisms on bearings that have not yet been monitored.
With our expert knowledge, we can interpret this data and add value to our customers. For example, safety factors can be determined more precisely and adapted for new developments. With digital services such as the "LifetimeAnalyzer", the remaining service life of the bearings can be predicted based on the actual load. In this way, we ensure reliable operation and make maintenance plannable.
With the Schaeffler Smart EcoSystem, we also have a flexible and open IT infrastructure that enables cloud-to-cloud communication. This allows customers to integrate our expert knowledge and digital services into their higher-level systems.