Abstract
In recent years, wind energy has become a leading source of renewable energy as the world strives to remove its reliance on fossil fuels. With the growing demand for wind energy, wind farms have begun to move offshore and the size of the average wind turbine has increased (up to 10 MW). However, as a result of these advances, additional challenges are presented – one of the most significant being leading edge erosion on wind turbine blades. This erosion requires additional maintenance, while lowering a turbine’s annual energy production by up to 25%, which needs to be eliminated, or significantly reduced, if offshore wind energy is to become competitive within global energy markets. To this end, in this paper, the methodology proposed in LEAPWind, a new collaborative European research project, which aims to prevent blade leading-edge erosion by employing advanced composite materials and innovative manufacturing processes has been presented. An advanced thermoplastic-epoxy composite material is used to manufacture a leading edge component for a wind turbine blade. The critical technical stages, including material identification and characterisation, component design and manufacture have been discussed. Additionally, the details relating to de-risking of the novel technologies through mechanical and rain erosion testing, and full-scale operational trials on a 2.1 MW wind turbine, located in an onshore wind farm in Portugal, has been included. The results of this study, will not only have social and economic benefits, but also a significant environmental impact as it will allow for the manufacture of a more sustainable wind turbine blade.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Conroy, J.: World wind power to almost double to 650GW by 2020. The Australian. 21 January 2015
SEIMENS Gamesa Newroom. http://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int/newsroom/2019/01/new-siemens-gamesa-10-mw-offshore-wind-turbine-sg-10-0-193-dd. Accessed 1 Mar 2019
Budinski, K.G.: Guide to Friction, Wear and Erosion Testing. ASTM international, West Conshohocken, PA (2007)
Keegan, M.H., Nash, D.H., Stack, M.M.: On erosion issues associated with the leading edge of wind turbine blades. J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 46, 383001 (2013)
Chen, J., Wang, J., Ni, A.: A review on rain erosion protection of wind turbine blades. J. Coat. Technol. Res. 16, 15–24 (2018)
Cortes, E., Sanchez, F., O’Carroll, A., Madramany, B., Hardiman, M., Young, T.M.: On the material characterisation of wind turbine blade coatings: the effect of interphase coating-laminate adhesion on rain erosion performance. Materials 10, 1146 (2017)
Cook, S.S.: Erosion by water-hammer. Proc. R. Soc. A: Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 119, 481–488 (1928)
Mann, B.S., Arya, V.: An experimental study to correlate water jet impingement erosion resistance and properties of metallic materials and coatings. Wear 253, 650–661 (2002)
Tobin, E.F., Rohr, O., Raps, D., Willemse, W., Norman, P., Young, T.M.: Surface topography parameters as a correlation factor for liquid droplet erosion test facilities. Wear 328–329, 318–328 (2015)
O’Carroll, A., Hardiman, M., Tobin, E.F., Young, T.M.: Correlation of the rain erosion performance of polymers to mechanical and surface properties measured using nanoindentation. Wear 412–413, 38–48 (2018)
Young, T.M., Tobin, E.: Rain erosion testing of composite materials: the design of a laboratory test facility. In: 3rd International Supply Wings Conference, Frankfurt, Germany (2008)
Engel, O.G.: Mechanism of Rain Erosion Part 2: A Critical Review of Erosion by Water Drop Impact. Nation Bureau of Standards (1953)
Bourne, N.K., Obara, T., Field, J.E.: The impact and penetration of a water surface by a liquid jet. Proc. R. Soc. A: Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 452, 1497–1502 (1996)
Adler, W.F.: Influence of water drop distortion on impact damage. In: Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium on Electromagnetic Wind, Atlanta (1982)
Schmitt Jr., G.F.: Flight test-whirling arm correlation of rain erosion resistance of materials. Air Force Materials Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH (1968)
ASTM G73 – 10: Standard Test Method for Liquid Impingement Erosion Using Rotating Apparatus. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, USA (2017)
ASTM, D3039 / D3039 M-17: Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Polymer Matrix Composite Materials. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, USA (2017)
ASTM D3479 / D3479 M – 12: Standard Test Method for Tension-Tension Fatigue of Polymer Matrix Composite Materials. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, USA (2017)
Lawrence, K.L.: ANSYS Workbench Tutorial Release 14. SDC publications, Mission, KS (2012)
Finnegan, W., Fagan, E., Flanagan, T., Doyle, A., Goggins, J.: Operational fatigue loadings on tidal turbine blades using computational fluid dynamics, Renewable Energy (Under Review)
Fagan, E.: Design of Fibre-Reinforced Polymer Composite Blades for Wind and Tidal Turbines. National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland (2017)
Finnegan, W., Goggins, J.: Linear irregular wave generation in a numerical wave tank. Appl. Ocean Res. 52, 188–200 (2015)
DNV-DS-J102: Design and Manufacture of Wind Turbine Blades, Offshore and Onshore Wind Turbines. DNV GL Standard (2010)
IEC 61400-23:2014: Full-Scale Structural Testing of Rotor Blades. Wind Turbines, International Electrotechnical Commission Part 23 (2014)
DNVGL-CP-0424: Coatings for Protection of FRP Structures with Heavy Rain Erosion Loads. DNV GL Standard (2016)
Astariz, S., Vazquez, A., Iglesias, G.: Evaluation and comparison of the levelized cost of tidal, wave, and offshore wind energy. J. Renew. Sustain. Energy 7, 053112 (2015)
UN Sustainable Development Goals. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org.Accessed 1 Mar 2019
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Executive Agency for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (EASME) in the European Commission through the LEAPWind project (Agreement no.: EASME/EMFF/2017/1.2.1.12/S1/06/SI2.789307). The first and last authors would like to acknowledge the support from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), through the Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) research centre (Grant no. 12/RC/2302), and the Career Development Award programme (Grant No. 13/CDA/2200).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Finnegan, W., Flanagan, T., Goggins, J. (2020). Development of a Novel Solution for Leading Edge Erosion on Offshore Wind Turbine Blades. In: Wahab, M. (eds) Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Damage Assessment of Structures. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8331-1_38
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8331-1_38
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-8330-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-8331-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)