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The global lubricant manufacturer Klüber Lubrication has added the Klübersynth BZ 68-400 to its range. This new grease has been specially formulated for wind turbines to address the problem of hot bearings.

The problem arises when generator bearings accumulate hardened residues. This then usually demands either limiting the capacity of the wind turbines, thus incurring the cost of lower power generation, or taking the wind turbine offline so the bearings can be manually cleaned or replaced, incurring downtime costs.

With Klübersynth BZ 68-400, the bearings can be effectively cleaned during operation. It achieves this by freeing up residues while also providing effective lubrications, thus protecting the bearings from wear and corrosion.

Klüber Lubrication’s sales development manager for wind energy, Thomas Wunder, said about the launch of the new grease:

“Until recently, residues had to be removed from rolling bearings manually, which caused a lot of extra work. Our newly developed Klübersynth BZ 68-400 is the first product enabling cleaning to be performed while the bearing is in operation.”

Despite being specially formulated for wind turbines, the new grease is said to be a high-performance yet flexible solution, so it may well find applications outside the wind power sector, especially as it is compatible with various base oil types. Indeed, to maximise versatility, particular care was taken during the development process to guarantee the grease’s compatibility with other base oils, so it may be used in other industry’s looking to optimise their grease changeovers for rolling bearings.