Slip Ring Technology in Wind Turbine Generator

Nowadays, there is around 10 percent of wind turbine slip ring is fiber brush contact materials in the market, this kind of slip ring only need to maintain rarely. Another 60 percent of slip ring part is made of composite metal brush and normally it combines with metal and graphite. Even if this type could meet around 75 million rotations service life time that some of suppliers declared, but its also require maintenance frequently. The residual 30 percent wind turbine slip ring adopt single precious metal brush, generally speaking, the performance of fiber brush is better than above two of types.

The main reason is for: composite metal brush design can wear brush in advance to avoid slip ring attrition, also it needs long brush only could delay brush exchanging circle in the greatest limitations. This kind of materials will meet three challenges mainly in the big power or high reliability slip ring application.

1. The residues that occurred in the operation has reduction and abrasiveness which need cleaning up regularly.
2. Composite metal brush materials is very sensitive to humidity. If Humidity is lower than 15% or higher than 85%, it could lead to uneven wearings sometimes.
3. When it is used for signal circuits, these composite metal brush will occupy a great of space.

Single metal brush compared with composite brush design, the biggest advantage is that residues is lesser and higher capacity for signal circuits. But, single metal brush design also exist some disadvantages:

1. Single brush will lead to limited current-carrying for smaller size.
2. For example, most of materials between gold and gold needs lubrication, it is very difficult to keep enough lubrication all the time.

We trust that there will be more and more slip ring demands in wind turbine application in the near future, hope the end user could choose reliable and best slip ring manufacturer to provide service and design a suitable slip ring solution for you.