With the increase of wind energy production demand, the need to manufacture larger wind turbine blades is on the rise. Because of the high tip speed of the large blade, the blade could be impacted by the high-speed objects such as raindrops. This research focuses on developing a computational model for analyzing wind turbine blade erosion induced by raindrop impact. A stochastic rain texture model is used to simulate realistic rain event determined by a rain intensity and a rain duration. A smoothed particle hydrodynamic approach is implemented to study the influence of the raindrop size, impact speed, impact angle, raindrop shape on the impact stress. A stress interpolation method is proposed to accurately and efficiently calculate the impact stress under a random rain event. In addition, a crack growth law is used to explain the process of coating shedding. A method for calculating crack growth length is proposed under impact of single drop. This paper analyzes crack growth life as a function of the rain intensity and the rain duration. This function, together with the statistics of rainfall history, provides a new approach for estimating the expected fatigue life of the blade coating. The fatigue damage of the top coating material is evaluated under a rain event based on the coating fracture analysis.


Wind Turbine Blade Coating Fatigue Induced by Raindrop Impact

Division / Sponsors: 
Power Division & Nuclear Engineering Division (NED)

Power Conference
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2020/volume/83747

International Conference on Nuclear Engineering
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ICONE/ICONE2020/volume/83761

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