Company
INVOLUTION TECHNOLOGIES Limited (ITL) is a gearbox design company primarily focused in the WIND / TIDAL turbine and Hybrid Electric Vehicle gearbox and drivetrain design sector. INVOLUTION’s innovative gearbox designs use “Hicks” flexible pins with multi planet epicyclics, which ensure extremely compact, low weight and reliable gearboxes.“Hicks” Flexible pins ensure uniform loading across the tooth face width and between planet wheels allowing multi planet epicyclics to be used; reducing the gear stresses and consequently improves gearbox reliability.) Involutions experience goes back to the inventor of the flexible pin, Ray Hicks. Recent new Hicks design innovations produced exclusively for Involution have provided gear arrangements that are extremely compact for large MW turbines (10 to 20MW)
INVOLUTION is a team of highly experienced gearbox engineers that have formed to carry forward the extensive gear and flexible pin gear transmission experience of Hicks and Cunliffe across a wide range of gearbox applications. Our engineers have a long experience of Wind Turbine and Tidal Turbine machine design which includes many wind projects ranging from 1.5 to 7MW, as well as three of the world’s leading tidal turbines. Our engineers have worked on projects for clients, who include, MCT Siemens, TGL Alstom, Atlantis, Nenuphar, SEWIND (Shanghai Electric), DOOSAN Korea, HYUNDAI, David Brown-Samsung, Windey China, XJ China and Dongfang China. Currently Involution are designing and manufacturing a world leading tidal gearbox for a major OEM and two 5MW wind turbine designs are under construction. Self-funded research is being conducted on our 12MW design for presentation to the market by year end. Involution has extensive knowledge of the overall turbine layouts and we are able to offer advice on the correct application of our gearbox designs into the turbine to give the best trouble free operation.
Design Tools: INVOLUTION engineers use the most up to date and advanced analysis tools this includes the use of :
- Solidworks
- KISSsoft
- MASTA
- ANSYS
- nCode DESIGNLIFE
Manufacture/build/ test and approval
Involution engineers have the full experience to train the gearbox manufacturer in the methods to build ITL flexible pin gearboxes, test and gain GL or equivalent approval.
Service and refurbishment
INVOLUTION engineers can provide full lifecycle technical support if the customer requires.
INVOLUTION gearbox designs are available to our customers as a licensed design to be build by a nominated contractor or can be supplied as a finished gearbox directly from Involution in cooperation with our manufacturing partner. Involution can offer assistance in locating suitable manufacturing partners if required, or components such as loose gears, castings, forgings from our extensive contact base across Asia.
INVOLUTION have technical offices located in the UK and Northern Czech Republic, and a sales office in China
Involution offers a full gearbox design and engineering service from concept to end of life, our deliverables are:
- Involution class leading gearbox design with a complete set of manufacturing drawings
- Prototype build/test supervision/GL approval
- Ongoing supervision and training and QA audit of gearbox manufacturer.
- Gearbox in-service improvements of via technical updates
- Full product life cycle technical support
Involution Gearbox design principles
- “Flexible pins” provides equal load distribution across the gear tooth face width and between planet wheels, giving uniform gear tooth loads even under overload and shock conditions. Providing increased planet wheel bearing life and preventing premature gear tooth failure.
- The use of “Multi Planet” wheels means that smaller diameter annulus wheels are possible for large MW drives.
- The “Kinematic” layout of the gears is arranged to isolate the rotor loads and hence gear housing deflections from the gear teeth.