Determining Water Content at Saturation for Three Common Wind Turbine Gearbox Oils: Mobilgear SHC XMP 320, AMSOIL EP Gear Lube ISO-320 and Castrol Optigear A320

To meet America’s growing energy demand, wind turbines will need to become larger and more cost effective [1]. However, estimates show that the average wind farm energy output is 10 percent less than predicted and that half of this short fall is due to gearbox downtime [2]. Increasing service life of the gearbox begins with monitoring the oil and controlling contamination by both particles and water. When online relative humidity monitoring is not available, oil samples from the gearbox need to be analyzed for quality and remaining service life. Field samples sent to a lab for testing often report water content as parts per million (ppm). Because the gearbox oil should be dried or replaced before the relative humidity reaches 100 percent (saturation limit), a relationship between ppm and the oil’s saturation limit needs to be established. The present research characterizes this relationship using an environmental chamber to simulate operating conditions and Karl Fischer titration to measure the water content. The resulting plots are of water content (ppm) at saturation versus temperature for three common wind turbine gearbox oils: Mobilgear SHC XMP 320, AMSOIL EP Gear Lube ISO-320 and Castrol Optigear A320.