Abstract
Yaw brakes are used in wind turbines to control the orientation of blades to be perpendicular to the wind. These devices are very important machine elements because they are closely related to the overall efficiency of wind turbines. One unit of yaw brakes is composed of a friction pad and a caliper. In this study, a tangential force between the friction pad and the disk is calculated when the brake is acting in 750 kW wind turbine. Then, stress distribution and the deformation of the caliper are calculated using a finite element analysis. An experimental equipment is also developed to verify the exactness of calculated results. The analytical and experimental results are presented and discussed.
