In May 30, 2018, the master student, Henrique Raduenz, presented his Master thesis in Florianopolis, SC. The thesis title is Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of a Hydrostatic Transmission for Wind Turbines. The work was conduct in partnership with Parker Hannifin – Cahoeirinha, RS, in Brazil, who provided knowledge and components for the test bench and with Reivax Automation and Control SA – Florianópolis, SC, who provided knowledge and components for the control and connection of the system to the electrical grid. The project also had the support from Fumes from Linköping University in Sweden. The author presented simulation and experimental results that proved the functionally of the proposed hydrostatic transmission system for wind turbines. The focus of the thesis was to show that using the hydrostatic transmission it is to control the turbine rotor while driving a synchronous generator with a direct connection to the grid, and all that using off-the-shelve components. With this objective, a test bench was built at LASHIP where real-time simulation and hardware-in-the-loop concepts are implemented. The results showed that the system is able to transfer the turbine rotor power to the synchronous generator while controlling the rotor speed according to the turbine operation region and while delivering electric power directly to the grid without the use of frequency converters. The proposed has the potential to reduce the weight supported by the tower and to reduce maintenance procedures, which are topics for future studies.
